Science and Religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican Debate, 1800-1860 (Past and Present Publications)

Science and Religion Baden Powell and the Anglican Debate, 1800-1860

Science and Religion Baden Powell and the Anglican debate, 1800-i860

PIETRO CORSI Universita di Cassino

The right of the University of Cambridge to print and sell all manner of books was granted by Henry VIU in 1534. The University has printed and published continuously since 1584.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge New York New Rochelle Melbourne Sydney

Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1988 First Published 1988 Printed in Great Britain by the University Press, Cambridge British Library cataloguing in publication data

Corsi, Pietro Science and religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican debate 1800-1860. 1. Powell, Baden 2. Great Britain Intellectual life - 19th century I. Title 94i.O7'3 DA533 Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data

Corsi, Pietro. Science and religion. Includes index. 1. Religion and science- 1800-1859. 2. Powell, Baden, 1796-1860. I. Title. BL245.C67 1988 261.5'5 87-13845 ISBN o 521 24245 2

UP

CONTENTS

Preface List of abbreviations

page vii ix

PART I Biographical introduction 1 The Hackney Phalanx: a family network

3 9

2 Baden Powell's early theological papers

21

3 Baden Powell's reflections on science in the early 1820s

36

4 Science and religion in the 1820s

49

5 Rational Religion Examined

61

6 Baden Powell between Oriel and Hackney

73

PART II Baden Powell and the Noetic school

83

7 The teaching of Richard Whately

85

8 The collision

96

9 Science and academic politics at Oxford: 1825-1835 10 Science and revelation: 1826-1836

106 124

PART III The new synthesis and its developments 11 The methodology of science (i) Baden Powell and William Whewell: the a priori in science (ii) Cause and effect: the limits of Baden Powell's philosophy (iii) The foundations of geological knowledge (iv) Baden Powell and John Stuart Mill (v) Baden Powell, Auguste Comte and British positivism

143 150 151 160 164 168 174

vi

Contents

12 The Christian apologetic and the fallacies of natural theology

178

13 Christian tolerance (i)The psychological foundations of faith (ii) New alliances

194 194 203

14 The parting of the ways: Baden Powell versus Richard Whately (i) The last mediation (ii) Essays and Reviews

209 209 215

P A R T IV The question of species 15 The French threat (i) France and England: hopes and fears (ii) Geology, philosophy and the species problem: Whewell, Lyell and Baden Powell 16 Species without Darwin

227 229 229 242 250

(i) Cosmology and the history of life

250

(ii) The reception of the Vestiges

261

17 Towards the Origin

272

18 Conclusions

286

Bibliography Reference works Manuscripts Primary sources Secondary sources Index

292 292 293 293 320 339

PREFACE

The research for this study started in 1972, when I was a graduate student at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa. In 1973, a Lord Florey European Studentship at the Queen's College, Oxford gave new impulse to my work. I was then able to exploit the resources of the Bodleian Library, the manuscript collections of several Colleges-Oriel and Manchester in particular - and of Pusey House. Mr Francis Baden Powell kindly put at my disposal the important collection of papers in his possession. I also enjoyed the hospitality of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, and I greatly profited from the advice of Dr Charles Webster, its Director. The first draft of this monograph was submitted in August 1980 to the History Faculty at Oxford University in the form of a D.Phil, dissertation. Further research on early nineteenth-century English philosophy of science, with particular reference to the debates on the epistemological status of theories in political economy, was undertaken at King's College, Cambridge, where I served as Senior Research Associate during the academic year 1980-1.1 enjoyed there the comradeship and intellectual stimulation of the members of the Research Centre engaged in the 'Political economy and society, 1750-1850' project. The years 1981-3 were spent deepening my understanding of the early history of evolutionary ideas in France and England. The resources of the National Library of Florence were particularly relevant for the revision of the fourth part of the present study. Pietro Omodeo, a pioneer of contemporary studies of Lamarck and French science in the early nineteenth century has offered constant advice and encouragement. The difficulty of living and teaching in different countries, and the need not to impose upon one's family the burden of one's choices, have delayed the publication of this work. A sabbatical leave from Harvard University, and a last-minute invitation by the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris have allowed me to complete the revision of this monograph. Prof. Paolo Galluzzi, Director of the Museo e Istituto di Storia della Scienza of Florence, kindly put at my disposal the facilities of his institution. I wish to thank all the above-mentioned colleagues and institutions for their trust and their help over many years. vii

viii

Preface

Since 1980, numerous important studies have been published dealing with crucial features of English intellectual life in early and mid-Victorian England. I have found a basic agreement with most of the recent historiographical production, while I have noted my differences with a minority of authors. It is clear that scholars are looking with new eyes to the period examined in this study. They are progressively abandoning ready-made, highly ideological and reductive interpretative simplifications for a richer appreciation of the problems faced by a society subjected to radical transformations. The intellectual career of Baden Powell, from his participation in the activities of the ultra-conservative Hackney Phalanx, to his contribution to Essays and Reviews, represents a fascinating case-study of the relationship between cultural and political change. Baden Powell's voyage through early nineteenthcentury British culture and Anglican apologetic in particular unveils dimensions of contemporary debates often neglected by historians of the period. It imposes a reconsideration of long-cherished historiographic myths such as the role of the so-called Broad Church movement in fostering British science, or the existence of a phantasmic entity called 'Anglican orthodoxy'. New evidence is also offered on the vexed, and often specious question of whether the complex, and constantly shifting relationship between science and religion can be interpreted in terms of inevitable conflict, or of constitutional harmony, as a new wave of revisionist historiography has been claiming in the last few years. My own journey through early nineteenth-century British culture owes a great deal to the patience and understanding of the staff at the Bodleian Library, the University Library, Cambridge, the Widener Library, Harvard, the Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence, and of the librarians in charge of manuscript collections at the Bodleian Library, the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth, the University Library, Liverpool, University College in London, the Devon Record Office in Exeter, Lambeth Palace, the British Library, Oriel College, Manchester College, Keble College and Pusey House in Oxford, Trinity College in Cambridge. I have discussed-at times without convincing or being convinced - parts of my work with several colleagues. I would like to thank, among others whose work I have discussed in my work, J. H. Brooke, R. Burckhardt, Y. Conry, R. Cooter, J. Garnett, C. C. Gillispie, M. Gowing, S. Gould, J. Greene, B. Hilton, J. Hodge, I. Hont, L. Jordanova, D. Kohn, C. Matthew, E. Mayr, J. Moore, D. Outram, G. Pancaldi, J. Roger, G. Rowell, S. S. Schweber, J. Walsh, P. Weindling, D. Yule. My greatest debt is to Dr Charles Webster and Margaret Pelling, who have assisted me in many ways since my early days in Oxford. Without their constant intellectual stimulation and moral support, I would not have been able to overcome the daunting difficulties facing a career devoted to research in my own country. To my parents, and to Marica and Elena this product of a common effort is dedicated. PIETRO CORSI

ABBREVIATIONS

A.S. B.C. B.J.H.S. B.M. C.R. E.R. J.H.B. Q.R. R.R.E. W.R.

Annals of Science British Critic The British Journal for the History of Science Blackwood Magazine Christian Remembrancer Edinburgh Review Journal of the History of Biology Quarterly Review Rational Religion Examined Westminster Review

IX

PARTI

BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION

The aim of this study is to assess the contribution of Baden Powell (17961860) to debates on the methodology of science, natural theology and the question of species, within the context of contemporary Anglican debates. The three topics have been selected out of a wide range of issues with which Baden Powell was concerned in the course of his life. His intellectual career covered many fields of inquiry. He devoted attention to experimental research on optics and radiant heat, to ecclesiastical history, the history of science, educational reform and theological and philosophical debates. He was an extremely prolific author, the great majority of his works being anonymous contributions to periodicals. Secondary sources have made only incidental reference to Baden Powell, usually confining themselves to consideration of his last publications. There is no systematic analysis of Baden Powell's contribution to nineteenth-century culture available. The most significant comment on his ideas is the Cambridge doctoral dissertation by John David Yule on the 'Impact of science on British religious thought' (1976). Yule's reconstruction of the early phases of Baden Powell's career will be examined in detail. Reference to relevant secondary literature will be given when appropriate. The issues selected for detailed examination in this study represent Baden Powell's main concerns. It will be shown that his consideration of the philosophical foundation of scientific and religious knowledge guided his approach to the wide spectrum of specific issues upon which he touched. The present monograph is mainly concerned with illustrating significant phases of Baden Powell's intellectual biography with an emphasis on the relevance of some neglected features of English, and specifically Anglican, intellectual life for the understanding of our author's ideas. Biographical details will be mentioned only when relevant to appreciating the importance of personal events in Baden Powell's intellectual development. It is therefore appropriate to provide the reader with an annotated synopsis of Baden Powell's life and to specify in some detail the criteria which have guided the choice of the issues selected for analysis. Particular attention will be devoted to Baden Powell's family background. None of the biographers or historians who have written on Baden Powell

4

Science and religion

mentions the close links of his family with the group of High Church activists known as the 'Hackney Phalanx' or 'Clapton Sect'. Baden Powell's early outlook was profoundly influenced by the Hackney standpoint. He was educated privately in Hackney and absorbed the views of his relatives respecting the means best suited to revive the declining fortunes of the Anglican Church. Baden Powell's early education focused on the liberal disciplines required for admission to the English universities. On 24 April 1814 he became a commoner of Oriel College, though he started his period of residence in January 1815. The teaching of the Oriel dons, known as the 'Oriel Noetics', represented the second major influence on Baden Powell's intellectual development. It is emphasized that in the early phase of his contribution to contemporary debates the young author attempted a synthesis of Hackney and Oriel views. In later years, however, he abandoned the Hackney standpoint, and became an original interpreter of the Noetic theological and philosophical approach. On 12 December 1817 Baden Powell obtained his B.A. with first class honours in mathematics. His manuscript journal, kindly put at my disposal by his descendants, records the increasing interest of the young student in scientific subjects, geometry and experimental researches on light in particular. Baden Powell also attended lectures on geology by William Buckland, and on chemistry by Charles Daubeny. His ecclesiastical career started on 19 December 1819, when he was ordained Deacon of the Church of England and appointed Curate to the parish of Midhurst, Sussex. The incumbent of the living, the Reverend Richard Lloyd, was an ally of the Hackney leaders. In October 1820 Baden Powell took his M.A., and was shortly afterwards introduced to the Reverend William Rowe Lyall, then editor of the British Critic, the journal financed by the Hackney Phalanx. The manuscript notes in Baden Powell's journal permit the identification of several of his contributions to the Critic and to the Christian Remembrancer, another journal sponsored by the Phalanx. Baden Powell's early writings have been overlooked by historians, and the author himself never mentioned his involvement with the Hackney editorial activities for reasons which will be examined in some detail. Baden Powell contributed several papers on optics and radiant heat to various scientific journals. It is noted that his early experimental work represented his only original contribution to science. Even though Baden Powell published in his life more than one hundred and twenty papers on scientific subjects, as well as several surveys of scientific debates, his work was increasingly devoted to popularizing the result of current research. Theological polemics, educational reform and the defence of scientific pursuits against epistemological and theological criticism characterized his publications from the early 1820s. Baden Powell's inability to update his scientific notions to meet the growing specialization of physical sciences will be documented and discussed in detail.

Biographical

introduction

5

He married his first wife, Eliza Rivaz, on 17 July 1817. In January 1821 his relatives offered him the living of Plumstead, Kent, and on 4 May 1821 he was ordained Priest of the Church of England. At his vicarage Baden Powell pursued his experiments on light and heat. On 29 May 1824 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He also devoted much time to philosophical and theological studies. In June 1824 he held a meeting with the editor of the Critic and became a regular reviewer for the journal. In February 1825 he conceived the project of a book against theological rationalism. Rational Religion Examined appeared on 11 March 1826. Only a few months earlier Baden Powell's views on the sabbath, printed in the Christian Remembrancer, aroused criticism and suspicion concerning the reliability of his theological standpoint. The synthesis of Oriel and Hackney approaches published by him in March 1826 rehabilitated the young author. With the help of the Hackney and Oriel influence, Baden Powell was appointed Savilian Professor of Geometry in February 1827. He immediately concentrated his efforts on raising the standards of mathematical studies at Oxford and took an active part in the debate on the reform of the statutes. His involvement in academic politics was of crucial relevance to Baden Powell's intellectual development. He was persuaded that the Anglican Church was reluctant to come to terms with new intellectual trends. He also realized the limits of the reforming impulse of his Oriel colleagues and friends. Baden Powell did not take part in the debate on the reform of the Royal Society, nor in the debate on the decline of science in Britain. He held views on both subjects, but he was too absorbed in the dramatic events at Oxford to play a major role in those issues. The debate on the reform of the curriculum and the heated controversy over the admission of Dissenters into English universities were two key issues in Baden Powell's development. His apologetic stance changed into a severe criticism of the university and the conservative factions of the Anglican Church. He found the theological approach of his Noetic friends particularly effective in dealing with the intellectual advances of the time, even though several members of the Oriel group refused to subscribe to all the conclusions deduced by Baden Powell from their standpoint. By the early 1830s the basic elements of his later approach to philosophy, theology and science were fully developed. Baden Powell became an active supporter of the Ashmolean Society, the Oxford organization for the promotion of scientific studies which he helped to establish in 1829. He also took an active part in the proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1831) and of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1826). He wrote for the Journal of Education, the magazine sponsored by the S.D.U.K., and edited by the mathematician Augustus de Morgan, a lifelong friend of Baden Powell. In 1832 he published his lecture on The Present State and Future Prospects of Mathematical and Physical Studies in the University of Oxford and in 1833 his sermon Revelation and Science. In 1834 he contributed An Historical View of

6

Science and religion

the Progress of the Physical and Mathematical Sciences to the Cabinet Cyclopaedia. The three works forcefully emphasized Baden Powell's belief that the development of modern science was obstructed by well-meaning but misguided theologians, who were afraid of the impact of scientific advance on religious feelings. Baden Powell found himself under attack from the British Critic and his Hackney relatives. His family ceased to give him financial support, and he thus found himself forced to multiply his literary efforts. In 1837 he contributed several papers to and edited the shortlived Magazine of Popular Science. In 1838 he discussed with the publisher Parker the possibility of launching a new quarterly, open to the forward-looking factions of the Anglican Church and the laity. The project failed, even though Baden Powell was powerfully supported by his former Oriel teacher, Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin since 1832. The links between the two men were reinforced by Baden Powell's second marriage, Eliza, his first wife, having died on 13 March 1835. On 27 September 1837 he married Charlotte Pope, the younger sister of Whately's wife Elizabeth. The situation in Tractarian Oxford became difficult for Baden Powell, who progressively increased his contacts with intellectual and scientific circles in the capital. On 17 May 1837 he became a member of the Geological Society and took an active part in its meetings. On 14 December 1838 he became a member of the Astronomical Society. The question of the epistemological status of geology and of its relevance to the Genesis narrative of creation attracted great attention in the 1830s. Baden Powell felt that the issue deserved a thorough investigation. He was also persuaded that the debate on geology represented a crucial test of the capacity of Christian apologists and natural theologians to adapt their arguments to the intellectual and scientific priorities of the time. From November 1836 he was engaged in writing his second major work, The Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth, which was published in February 1838. The years 1838-41 were the most prolific of Baden Powell's career. In January 1839 he published Tradition Unveiled, a polemical examination of the Tractarian emphasis on Church authority. The book was highly successful. A Supplement was published in 1840, and an American edition appeared in Philadelphia in 1841. In 1840 Baden Powell also entered the debate on popular education and advocated the principle of non-denominational state education in a pamphlet on State Education. In 1841 he published A General and Elementary View of the Undulatory Theory, as Applied to the Dispersion of Light, where he surveyed the debate on the theory of light and his own contribution to the subject-mainly translations of memoirs by the French physicist Augustin-Louis Cauchy. From 1841 Baden Powell contributed a considerable number of papers to various journals. He increasingly regarded himself as a Christian philosopher who surveyed the development of scientific, philosophical and theological knowledge. During

Biographical introduction

7

the 1840s he became a well-known figure in metropolitan social and intellectual circles. He was a frequent guest at soirees organized by the Marquis of Northampton, the President of the Royal Society, and at parties given by Charles Lyell, Roderick Impey Murchison and Charles Babbage. On 24 October 1844 his second wife, Charlotte, died. On 10 March 1846 Baden Powell married Henrietta Grace Smyth, daughter of Captain William Henry Smyth and sister of the astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth. The new well-connected family circle raised Baden Powell's social status. During his frequent visits to London, Baden Powell came into contact with representatives of liberal and radical theology. He became acquainted with the Baron von Bunsen, an active supporter of German higher criticism. He was also on close terms with the classicist and radical theologian Francis Newman. The circle of Baden Powell's new friends included the physiologist William Benjamin Carpenter, Henry Thomas Buckle, Robert Chambers and George Henry Lewes. We will discuss in detail the relationship of Baden Powell with the metropolitan radical theologians and philosophers active in the late 1840s and the early 1850s. In the late 1840s Baden Powell took a prominent part in the campaign for the reform of the universities. He was a member of the deputation to Lord John Russell which on 10 July 1848 submitted the petition for a University Commission of Inquiry. Eventually in 1850 the Commission was established, and on 20 August 1850 the Savilian Professor was asked to become one of its members. It is appropriate to emphasize that in 1835 Baden Powell had been the first Oxford professor to insist that only Parliament was capable of overcoming the resistance to change displayed within the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He put forward his views on university reform in the section which he contributed to the final Report of the Commission (1852). We will not expand upon Baden Powell's involvement in university politics in the 1850s, since he simply restated the arguments elaborated by him in the early 1830s, which will be examined in detail. In the early 1850s Baden Powell discovered that his ideas were now accepted by many of his London friends. He therefore decided to give publicity to his views by publishing a series of essays on the methodology of science and the question of species. The publication of the anonymous Plurality of Worlds immediately ascribed to William Whewell - forced Baden Powell to include a further essay on the astronomical controversy. The Essays on the Spirit of Inductive Philosophy, the Unity of Worlds and the Philosophy of Creation was published in April 1855. The book was an immediate success. The Savilian Professor was invited to preach at Kensington Palace. The sermons he delivered before the royal family were published as a second series of essays, with the title Christianity without Judaism (1856). Baden Powell's last work, The Order of Nature, appeared in 1859. The advanced theological views put forward in his last writings provoked an open

8

Science and religion

confrontation with Whately, who severely criticized the ideas of his former pupil. Baden Powell retorted to Whately's criticism in his contribution to the Essays and Reviews, the collective volume which gave rise to one of the most famous theological controversies of the century. In his essay 'On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity' Baden Powell questioned the credibility of miracles and praised Darwin's On the Origin of Species. He had become the most outspoken representative of liberal theology and the evolutionary approach to natural history. His sudden death, on n June i860, deprived him of the possibility of linking his name with the evolutionary debate as the first outspoken theological supporter of Darwin's theory.

The Hackney Phalanx: a family network

Baden Powell was born at Stamford Hill, Hackney, on 22 August 1796.1 To state the place and the date of his birth is not, in this case, an instance of biographical pedantry. Indeed, Hackney, in those days a village north-east of London, and the role several families living there played in the social and cultural life of early nineteenth-century England, are of particular relevance to an understanding of Baden Powell's early intellectual career. It is the more interesting to pursue and describe our author's family connections, as we become aware of the fact that both Baden Powell himself and historians who have been concerned with his work, or with the activities of members of his family, have systematically failed to make clear the links between the much discussed figure of the Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford and the Hackney Phalanx, the famous High Church group of staunch supporters of the Constitution in Church and State during the early nineteenth century. 2 Baden Powell, who was otherwise in the habit of indulging in copious references to his earlier works and ideas, persistently avoided mentioning his earliest contributions to the activities of the Hackney Phalanx. Mrs Baden Powell, who in 1866 published a sketch of her husband's life, omitted to list in the otherwise satisfactory bibliography of Baden Powell's works all the books and papers discussing theological and philosophical doctrines which he published before 1830.3 In an impressive thesis on natural theology in the early decades of the nineteenth century, J. D. Yule analysed Baden Powell's early ideas on the relationship between science and religion. 4 Unfortunately he ignored Baden 1

D.N.B.; D.S.B.; obituary notice in Proceedings of the Royal Society, 11 (1860-2), xxvi-xxix; W. Tuckwell, Pre-Tractarian Oxford (1909), pp. 165-225; O. Chadwick, The Victorian Church, pt.I (1966), pp. 553-5; J. D. Yule, 'The impact of science on British religious thought in the second quarter of the nineteenth century', (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1976). 2 J. H. Overton, The English Church in the Nineteenth Century (1894), ch. 2; B. R. Marshall, 'The theology of Church and State in relation to the concern for popular education in England, 1800-1870' (D.Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1956), ch. 6; J. K. B. Jones, 'Anglican theological thought, 1750-1833, with especial reference to the pre-Tractarians' (Ph.D. thesis, Leeds University, 1968). 3 H. G. Baden Powell, Notices of the Life of the Reverend Baden Powell (n.d.) [1886]. 4 Yule, 'The impact of science', pp. 85, no.

io

Science and religion

Powell's numerous anonymous contributions to the British Critic and the Christian Remembrancer, two magazines sponsored in different ways by the Hackney Phalanx. As a consequence, he inevitably misunderstood the rationale of the problems Baden Powell and his associates were discussing. This failure cannot be attributed to Dr Yule's lack of interest in the early stages of Baden Powell's intellectual development, but to the reluctance of primary and secondary sources seriously to investigate Baden Powell's family and intellectual background. A. B. Webster, author of a modern biography of Joshua Watson (i77i-i855),the organizing spirit of the Hackney Phalanx, did mention Professor Baden Powell as being one of the youngest members of the Phalanx 'who ultimately abandoned the Hackney standpoint'. However, he clearly failed to distinguish between Baden Powell senior, of Langton, Kent, and Baden Powell the Oxford professor. As far as Baden Powell's family relations were concerned, Webster stated that Baden Powell was 'a distant cousin' of Watson. As with Yule's dissertation, Webster's lack of accuracy is easily explained. Most of his information on the Watson family was taken from the Memoir of Joshua Watson, a nineteenth-century biography of the father figure of the Hackney circle published in 1861 by Edward Churton (1800-74). Churton expanded upon Watson's activities and repeatedly emphasized the family links which bound together several families who took an active part in promoting the Phalanx plans. When describing the charitable enterprises initiated by Watson, Churton mentioned the generous contributions of Baden Powell senior. However, he avoided making a single reference to the role played by Baden Powell in the editorial and general cultural activities of the Phalanx during the early 1820s. Indeed he simply ignored Baden Powell altogether.5 This is the more surprising in view of the close family links between Churton and Baden Powell. Edward Churton's wife was a daughter of John James Watson (1770—1839), brother of Joshua. In 1807 n e married Caroline Powell, a sister of Baden Powell senior. Thus, Baden Powell the Savilian Professor was in fact a cousin of Edward Churton's wife. Clearly, it was a matter of policy which made Churton ignore the activities and family connections of the notorious Professor Baden Powell. When Churton's biography of Watson appeared in 1861, the Savilian Professor had died recently (June i860), thus escaping being the first in the list of candidates for prosecution among the authors who contributed to the Essays and Reviews.6 It is not surprising, therefore, that Churton preferred not to mention his hero's connection with an acknowledged leader of the infidel party within the Anglican Church. Yet, Churton's scrupulous and detailed account of the life of Watson allows the patient reader to find his way through the intricacies s A. B. Webster, Joshua Watson (1954), pp. 27, 28, 69, 175; E. Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, 2 vols. (1861), vol. i, pp. 85, 149, 221; vol. ii, pp. 220-1, 231, 265. Baden Powell's contribution to the Essays and Reviews was probably the one which most shocked contemporary churchmen and parish priests. On the several angry comments on Baden Powell's denial of the physical possibility of miracles see I. Ellis, Seven against Christ (1980), and below, ch. 12.

6

The Hackney Phalanx: a family network

n

of the family tree. By patching together passing allusions to Watson's relatives it was possible to reach the conclusion that Baden Powell, whom Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-82) doubted had died a Christian, was closely related to the central figures of the ultra-orthodox Hackney Phalanx. Indeed, J. J. Watson, Henry Handley Norris (1771-1850), and Thomas Sikes (17671834) the leaders of the Hackney group, were Baden Powell's uncles.? Further inquiry stimulated by the surprising result of the analysis of Churton's work, made it possible to trace a Pedigree of the Powell Familyr, privately printed in 1891. This richly documented history throws much needed light upon Baden Powell's family connections. In 1797 Thomas Sikes, Vicar of Guilsborough and author of the once famous Discourse on Parochial Communion (1812), married Susanna Powell, sister of Baden Powell senior. Sikes was a nephew of Charles Daubeny (1745-1827), the ultra-Tory High Churchman whose Guide to the Church (1798) was a favourite work among the Hackney group and English conservative circles. In the same year, 1797, Joshua Watson married Mary Sikes, sister of Thomas. In 1805 Henrietta Catherine Powell (1773-1854), another of Baden Powell senior's sisters, married Henry Handley Norris, later Vicar of South Hackney. Norris was a leading figure in the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; his influence on the government regarding matters of Church politics, gained him the sobriquet of'Bishop-maker'. In 1807 Caroline Powell (1775-1865)-the future motherin-law of Edward Churton - married John James Watson, brother of Joshua and Rector of Hackney.8 The network of family links between the Norrises, Watsons and Powells was favoured by the fact that all lived in the same London suburb. Baden Powell had a house in Upper Homerton, five minutes' walk from H. H. Norris's chapel, and from Clapton, where Joshua Watson came to live in 1811. The Powells contributed generously to the building of new churches, a characteristic feature of the religious and social activities of the Hackney Phalanx. In 1802 this group of friends launched a subscription to build two new chapels of ease in Hackney. One was to be built in Wells Street, the other in Shacklewell, two populous districts of London's expanding suburbs. Donations by the Norrises and the Powells were munificent, especially on behalf of the Wells Street project. The chapel so built, St John's, was given into the care of H. H. Norris, who officiated there as Curate to his brother-in-law, J. J. Watson. In later years, the chapel was transformed into a vicarage and H. H. Norris became the Rector of South Hackney.? 1 Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, vol. i, pp. 46-7, 97; vol. ii, pp. 220-1. On Churton's conservative theological leanings, see (Anon.), A Short Memoir of Archdeacon Churton (1861). 8 B. Powell, The Pedigree of the Powell Family (1891). I wish to thank Mrs. Muriel Powell Baker for her assistance. 9 W. Robinson, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Hackney, 2 vols. (1842), vol. i, pp. 173-8; D. Lysons, Supplement to the first edition of the Historical Account of the Environs of London (1811), pp. 163-75; see also Webster, Joshua Watson and Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson.

12

Science and religion

It could be argued that the zeal these families showed in building new churches during the early 1800s and in promoting the cause of Church popular education, was related to the peculiarity of the Hackney situation. For many decades during the second half of the eighteenth century, Hackney had been a convenient country resort for a number of wealthy families; bankers and merchants predominated among the parish aristocracy. During the closing decades of the eighteenth century and the first years of the nineteenth, their religious and political outlook was not always in tune with the policies pursued by the Tory government and the Church of England. Moreover, the populous sectors of the parish housed working-class families, especially artisans, and were a prolific seed-bed for radical activities and propaganda. Homerton was a locality particularly dear to the Dissenting party, since it housed Homerton College, the oldest educational institution of the Independents. Even more worrying to and detested by Anglican churchmen was the shortlived presence in Hackney of the Unitarian New College. The defiant radicalism and Jacobinism of students and teachers there brought to an end the experiment of Unitarian higher education in Hackney.10 However, the leader of the Unitarian movement after the death of Joseph Priestley (17331804), Thomas Belsham (1750-1829), was a tutor at the College and kept his residence in the parish until a few months before his death.11 His works caused great alarm and aroused apprehension in conservative Anglican circles. The learning displayed by Belsham could hardly have been matched by High Church Anglican divines. A work by Belsham called forth a learned reply from the pen of the Dissenting minister John Pye Smith (1774-1851), another Hackney intellectual of high prestige. Smith was resident tutor at Homerton College from September 1800 and theological instructor in the same establishment from 1806. His Scripture Testimony to the Messiah (1812) contained, together with a refutation of Belsham's principles, one of the first detailed analyses of recent developments in German theology.12 It was a meagre consolation to see a learned 'infidel' production disputed by an even more impressive disquisition by a Dissenter; the Hackney leaders probably felt that the Anglican Church had very little to say on theological and exegetical issues. Undeterred by Anglican invectives, the Unitarians made significant progress in Hackney as in Britain 10

11

12

On Homerton College see Robinson, History and Antiquities, vol. i, pp. 278-89, and A. Lincoln, Some Political and Social Ideas of English Dissent, 1763-1800 (1937), p. 88; on the Unitarian New College, C. G. Bolam et at., The English Presbyterians (1968), p. 237; on the Unitarian Academy established in 1811 see R. Aspland, Memoir of the Life, Works and Correspondence of the Rev. Robert Aspland (1850), pp. 303-30; B. Simon, Studies in the History of Education (i960), pp. 66-70. D.N.B.; J. Williams, Memoirs of the Late Reverend Thomas Belsham (1833). On the anxiety caused by Belsham's editorial activities, see J. W. Burgon, Lives of Twelve Good Men (1888), p. 69. J. Medway, Memoirs of the Life of John Pye Smith (1853). J. Hunt, Religious Thought in England in the Nineteenth Century (1896), pp. 82-3.

The Hackney Phalanx:

a family

network

13

as a whole. In 1809 they were building a new meeting house on the side of Paradise Field. Various Dissenting groups were also active in building chapels and organizing schools at Hackney.13 The Hackney cultural life was characterized by a wide spectrum of religious, educational and editorial activities. This social and cultural commitment was at variance with the policy of relative inactivity adopted by the hierarchies of the Established Church and the State. The Norrises, Watsons and Powells perceived that by their intellectual activity and their capacity for adapting to the needs of an expanding urban population, the non-conformists in Hackney presented a challenge of worrying dimensions to the Anglican Church. In response they built new churches at their own expense and founded new schools. In 1805 H. H. Norris personally financed the establishment of a new school and in later years he also built and endowed a school for girls.14 Outside of Hackney and away from the rapidly changing religious and political atmosphere of industrial urban settlements, it was probably difficult to appreciate the need for such a display of pastoral and educational zeal. There is some evidence suggesting that the activities of the Hackney Phalanx were looked at with a certain degree of hostility within ultra-reactionary circles. The Hackney plan to convince the Church and the State of the need to gain ideological and institutional control over the popular education movement, for instance, succeeded in winning a cautious and qualified approval only after considerable debate. It was difficult to persuade the strong anti-Jacobin party of which the Hackney group was itself a very active faction - that Sunday schools were not synonymous with 'nurseries of sedition' or the diffusion of popular culture the chief engine of social unrest.^ There is indirect evidence suggesting that representatives of the Anglican '3 R. B. Aspland, Memoir of Robert Aspland, p. 255; J. Sellers, 'Political and social attitudes of representative English Unitarians (1795-1850)' (B.Litt. thesis, Oxford University, 1956). Aspland, 'Oratio delivered by R. Aspland', British Library, Hone Papers, Ms Add 40120, fol. 84. Aspland's congregation was one of the most prosperous and active in England, see (Anon.), 'Unitarianism in England', British Magazine, 3 (1833), 209-10. A. Ruston, 'Radical Nonconformity in Hackney, 1805-1845', Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, 14 14

15

(1955), 1-9It was from Hackney that Aspland edited the Monthly Repository and the Christian Reformer; see J. R. Beard (ed.), Unitarianism Exhibited (1846), p. 132, and F. E. Mineka, The Dissidence of Dissent. The Monthly Repository 1806-1838 (1940). In 1807 Aspland started a series of very successful weekly conferences at the Gravel Pit chapel: see R. B. Aspland, Memoirs p. 165, who also noted (p. 176) that Hackney was 'the residence of several persons of high cultivation'. Among the latter, it is sufficient to mention Francis August Cox (1783-1853), founder of the Baptist Magazine, and one of the instigators of the Encyclopaedia Metropolitan. Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, vol. i, p. 103; S. C. Carpenter, Church and People (1933), pp. 68-88; Marshall, 'Theology of Church and State'. For an epigraphic statement of the Hackney interpretation of the aim of popular education, see (Anon.), 'The scandals of impiety and unbelief, B.C., 2 (1820), 413-30, and in particular p. 430: 'The superior is no longer respected, because he is a superior in rank; he must prove himself also a superior in knowledge and virtue. The proof can only be comprehended by such as are not absolutely ignorant, and we must consequently instruct the poor, that we may be able to convince them.'

14

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Church regarded with hostility even the idea of refuting the tenets of Dissenters and Unitarians on theological grounds. To discuss with the heretics and the infidels was in their eyes to acknowledge their existence and their cultural identity. It is interesting to point out that in 1805 William Van Mildert (17651836), the theological spokesman of the Phalanx, felt it necessary to justify his severe critique of contemporary non-Anglican theological standpoints, which he equated with infidelity and social subversion. He could not agree, Van Mildert wrote, with those who believed that the very fact of attacking the tenets of the enemies with a detailed and well argued criticism was in itself a dangerous exercise. 16 The social and political events of the 1810s and the 1820s convinced the more reluctant that the old world could not be saved without concrete and positive effort, and indeed without adopting the organizational skills of the adversary. The pressure exercised by the Hackney Phalanx was the chief factor in the creation, in 1811, of the National Society for the Education of the Poor. It was specifically established to counter the successful Dissenting enterprises in the field of popular education. In 1818, a few months after the institution of the Church Building Society at the instigation of the Phalanx, Parliament voted a one million pound grant for the purpose of providing the newly expanded towns with adequate church facilities. *? In the first two decades of the nineteenth century the Hackney Phalanx constituted the only active group within the ranks of the High Church aware of the need for positive policies to be used in preference to purely repressive ones - even though the latter were not at all excluded and indeed often welcomed. Complete control over society and the preservation of privileges and inequality were aims the Hackney leaders had in common with the more conservative forces in Church and State. Yet, the experience they had of middle-class economic, religious and intellectual activities made them aware of the need for competitive policies. These were to be pursued in the same crucial sectors in which the adversaries had chosen to undermine the presence and the authority of the Anglican Church in English society. It needs to be pointed out that all the families in the Hackney Phalanx group were of mercantile extraction. The wars with the colonies and France offered many openings to private profiteers and the families demonstrated their ability to take full advantage of these opportunities, redoubling their capital several times during the years of conflict. The financial and organizational skills underlying their economic success were successfully redeployed to implement political and religious programmes. 18 16

W. Van Mildert, An Historical View of the Rise and Progress of Infidelity, 2 vols. (New edn., 1831), vol. i, p. 448. '? H. J. Burgess and P. A. Welsby, A Short History of the National Society (1951); Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, vol. i, pp. 102-17; M. H. Port, Six Hundred New Churches (1961). J. H. Overton, The English Church in the Nineteenth Century (1894), p. 240; F. K. Brown, Fathers of the Victorians (1961), pp. 352-3. 18 Webster, Joshua Watson, pp. 28-9.

The Hackney Phalanx:

a family

network

15

Notwithstanding the many successes achieved at financial and institutional levels, the leaders of the Hackney Phalanx were painfully aware that Parliament and the law could not deal with more fundamental weaknesses currently afflicting the religious Establishment. Qualities other than financial skills were needed to bridge the gap between the cultural equipment of the parson and the intellectual challenge of the day. The theological instruction of the clergy was practically nonexistent, nor did the Church as a whole distinguish itself for learning or aggressive theological proposals. Charles Daubeny's and Van Mildert's writings were sufficiently belligerent, but only at the level of invective. As a distinguished visitor pointed out, the Anglican Church had in the early nineteenth century 'few accomplished theologians'.19 Furthermore, the learning of the few active theologians was more adapted to anti-deistic controversy than to biblical criticism or scholarly exegesis. The education of the average parish priest was scarce on specific theological subjects. Those few clergy who had attended Oxford and Cambridge, were more familiar with Greek orators and Latin historians than with patristic literature or elementary biblical exegesis. As H. H. Norris remarked, the country clergy were 'constant readers of the Gentleman's Magazine', deep in the antiquities of the signs of inns, speculations as to what becomes of swallows in winter, and whether hedge-hogs, or other urchins, are most justly accused of sucking milch-cows dry at night'. The problem was therefore twofold. On the one hand, there was the question of the education of the clergy. On the other, it was essential to raise the theological standards of the active clergy and of the lay supporters of the Establishment.20 As far as the question of providing the clergy with basic theological literacy was concerned, individual efforts were made during the 1810s and the 1820s to raise theological standards in both universities. In 1814 Van Mildert, a close friend of Joshua Watson, was made Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, where he lectured with satisfactory regularity. He was succeeded by another friend of the Phalanx, Charles Lloyd (1784-1829), later Bishop of Oxford. Lloyd took private pupils, and delivered lectures on a wide though traditional range of topics to pupils like Pusey and John Henry Newman (1801-1890). 2 1 '9 John Henry Hobart, Archbishop of New York; see Churton, Memoirs of Joshua Watson, vol. i, p. 245; F . W. B. Bullock, A History of the Training for the Ministry of the Church of England (i955)> PP- 3*-920 H . Marsh, An Essay on the Usefulness and Necessity of Theological Learning to Those who Are Designed for Holy Orders (1792), pp. 1 - 2 : 'though the greatest number o f students in the two universities is designed for orders, the study o f divinity is regarded as a secondary consideration'. Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, vol. i, p. 277. 21 D.N.B.; on Van Mildert, see Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, vol. i, pp. 62^79, E. S. Ffoulkes, A History of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin (1892), pp. 3 7 1 - 8 4 and W. H. Mackean, The Eucharist Doctrine of the Oxford Movement (1933), p. 15. For a summary o f Lloyd's lectures, see Ffoulkes, pp. 4 0 0 - 5 . F . N e w m a n , Contributions chiefly to the Early History of Cardinal Newman (1891), pp. 3 0 - 4 0 , p. 4 0 : ' I now learned from Baden Powell that he [Lloyd] was learned in German theological literature, and felt it a scandal that in Oxford there was a

16

Science and religion

Herbert Marsh, probably the most learned Anglican divine of the early nineteenth century, delivered a series of lectures at Cambridge. Marsh's teaching aroused considerable apprehension on account of its favourable reference to German theological studies, and to the works of Michaelis in particular. Marsh was one of the very few English divines conversant at a scholarly level with the problem of the scriptural canon. Of a more orthodox tenor were the lectures delivered at Cambridge by Thomas Rennell (i 787-1824) and Hugh James Rose (1795-1838), in their capacity of Christian Advocates. However, as Rose himself remarked, their efforts were followed by scarcely noticeable results. The fortunes of Anglican theological learning and teaching were even lower at Cambridge than at Oxford.22 On the whole, despite the lack of immediate results, the prospects for theological teaching in the universities looked slightly brighter. The question which increasingly worried the Hackney leaders was the problem of securing a qualified presence of sound High Church principles in theological and political debates. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century there had been a constant increase in the number of magazines and reviews. As is well known, the press was not always friendly to the entrenched interests of the more conservative sectors within the Church and the State. The Hackney leaders fully appreciated the importance of press campaigns and of party organs of opinion in influencing the public mind. They had gained considerable experience in organizing pro-establishment political publications since the time of their involvement in the Anti-Jacobin Review and the Scholar Armed.2* The ever-increasing pugnacity of Dissenting organizations and expanding Unitarian intellectual activity convinced the Hackney friends of the need to give a pronounced Church and State tone to the British Critic, a monthly magazine established in 1793 to fight the influence of the radical Monthly Repository. Joshua Watson and H. H. Norris bought the magazine at the end of 1811. Van Mildert and Rennell were the first editors. They were followed

22

23

total absence of solid learning as to the origins and history of the separate books of our Scriptures'. In a letter to Lord Melbourne, R. Whately made interesting comments on theological teaching at Oxford, and was severely critical of Lloyd's competence and achievements. Marsh was a cousin of William Frend (1757-1841), the mathematical tutor expelled from Cambridge in 1793 for his political ideas, whose daughter married Augustus de Morgan. On Marsh, see J. Hunt, Religious Thought in England in the Nineteenth Century (1896), pp. 3 0 6, Brown, Fathers of the Victorians, pp. 309-10. See also Overton, The English Church, pp. 176-7, on the war of pamphlets which followed Marsh's 1801 Origin and Composition. Bishop Randolph of Oxford was a firm opponent of Marsh. However, the merits of the latter's pro-Hackney political activities imposed a restriction on the attack: see for instance the respectful disagreement expressed by J. J. Conybeare in his 1824 Bampton Lectures. Yet, suspicion of Marsh's pro-German sympathies survived decades after his death, and was frequently voiced in private correspondence among High Churchmen in the aftermath of the publication of Essays and Reviews: cf. Ellis, Seven against Christ. On Rennell see Hunt, pp. 46-7. On Rose see D . M. B. Snow, 'Hugh James Rose Rector of Hadleigh, Suffolk' (B.Litt. thesis, Oxford University, i960). Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, vol. i, pp. 2 8 - 9 .

The Hackney Phalanx: a family network

17

by a series of Hackney appointees, which included Thomas Fanshaw Middleton (1769-1822), later Bishop of Calcutta, and William Rowe Lyall, later Dean of Canterbury. Moreover, when in 1818 the Reverend Frederick Ironmonger started the Christian Remembrancer, Van Mildert was asked to give his advice. There is indirect evidence suggesting that the Hackney leaders had a financial concern in the Remembrancer and were influential in appointing its editors.2* The British Critic and the Christian Remembrancer both failed to satisfy their owners and inspirers. This was partly because it was difficult to find contributors sufficiently equipped to further the programme of the editors and partly because the reviews had to follow the taste of the public if the journals were to pay their way. The British Critic's editorial policy during the 181 os and the 1820s, relevant to our study of Baden Powell's early activity and of Anglican views of the relationship between science and religion, was characterized by different phases, up to the issue of a third series of a more pronounced theological character in 1827. A glance at the indexes of the first fifteen years of the life of the British Critic under direct Hackney editorship reveals that the new magazine hardly escaped the kind of criticism made by H. H. Norris against the Gentleman's Magazine. Several papers reviewed popular books on travels or reported on miscellaneous scientific subjects. Ample space was also given to scientific curiosities or to scientific disciplines fashionable at the time, such as geology, astronomy, anthropology and entomology. An equal number of contributions were devoted to commenting on sermons and speeches on the questions of the day by bishops and churchmen supported by the Hackney group. The alliance between the Church and the State was uniformly upheld. Unitarians and Dissenters were regularly abused. Social and political issues were also considered. It was typical of the British Critic's editorial line to link theological, philosophical or scientific debates to the social and political preoccupations of the upper classes. Thus, the repeated attacks against the British and Foreign Bible Society, established in 1804, were motivated by theological considerations, but reviewers were careful to point out the subversive implications of the Society's programme. As is well known, the British and Foreign Society was designed to promote the reading of the Bible at home and in the colonies. In order to achieve the maximum result, the Society was ecumenical and non-denominational. It enjoyed the highest patronage and succeeded in establishing branches throughout the country.25 The Hackney leaders disliked the very idea of working with Dissenters and *• Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, vol. i, pp. 96, 276-85; Overton, The English Church, pp. 44, 200-2. W. R. W. Stephens, Life and Letters of W. H. Hook (1878), p. 144: ' J o s n u a Watson and Mr. Norris encouraged Mr. Ironmonger to start the Christian Remembrancer''', Mineka, The Dissidence of Dissent, p. 53. 2 s Brown, Fathers of the Victorians, pp. 244-5, 255-8, 314-5.

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Unitarians or even with Anglican evangelical brethren. Dissenters were heretics and traitors. It was difficult to draw a line between their policy and the subversive plans of the radicals or even the Jacobins. The local committees established by the Society to reach the lower strata of the population were organized according to detestable democratic principles. It was often the case that a barber or a bank accountant dared to preach the gospel and Christian duty to his superiors. The Hackney leaders pointed out that to teach selforganization to the lower classes was to lower the social barriers, and to open the gates to the formation of revolutionary movements.26 Entrenchment was the programme of the Hackney leaders. Yet their firsthand experience of the social and cultural activities of their enemies had made them aware that invective was powerless to stop the downward trend of the old political and religious establishment. It could be argued that their social and political instincts were more developed than their theological and intellectual ones. The Hackney leaders unsuccessfully tried to revive Hutchinsonianism and proposed the Caroline divines as guides to the times. Young Baden Powell was advised to read the non-juror authorities most valued by the Hackney leaders. His relatives and mentors often visited Nay land to pay their respects to William Jones (i 726-1800), the Hutchinsonian theological inspirer of the Phalanx.27 During the 1820s and the 1830s, the Phalanx leadership failed to impose a coherent theological line on the journals it controlled. Their scholarship and theological learning was amateurish and old-fashioned. Significantly, in the late 1830s they progressively gave way to Newman's manoeuvres to obtain control of the British Critic, though they could not agree with or were unable fully to understand the theological consequences of Newman's standpoint.28 It would be wrong, however, to ascribe failure solely to the old fashioned theology or philosophy of the Phalanx. The educational and theological shortcomings that the Hackney leaders engaged to improve were the result of deep institutional weaknesses of the Anglican establishment. No solution was possible without reforming the organizational structure of the Church. Ironically, but 26

H . H . Norris, A Practical Exposition of the Tendency and Proceedings of the British and Foreign Bible Society (1814), pp. 2 0 6 - 1 2 , 286, 407, 413. Norris hinted that the B.F.B.S. could be equated with the conspiratorial activities o f pre-revolutionary illuminati; see also (Anon.), B.C.y 8 (1817), 5 4 1 - 2 : ' w e wish to see the labouring man at no other place but at his work, at his chapel, and at his home. Neither his education nor his habits fit him for what may be termed society; and we are persuaded that when the lower orders meet at any other place, excepting the three which w e have mentioned, they meet to gather only for mischief. ( T . Sikes), An Humble Remonstrance to the Bishop of London (1806); see copy in Bodleian Library, Oxford (133 e 723 (1)) for a manuscript account o f a meeting between Sikes and Bishop Porteus o n the B.F.B.S., where Sikes expressed his horror at the growth o f Dissent and o f the Society. 2 7 Marshall, ' T h e o l o g y o f Church and State', p. 324; Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, vol. i, p. 58. 28 Marshall, ' T h e o l o g y o f Church and State', pp. 5 0 0 - 8 .

The Hackney Phalanx:

a family

network

19

not surprisingly, the major ambition of the Hackney leaders, to revive Anglican theology, fell victim to their obsessive defence of the institutional status quo. The contemporary Anglican Church was a federation of parishes and dioceses. Nepotism, pluralism and absenteeism were deadly plagues of the establishment, which the Hackney leaders went to extreme lengths to defend. These typical ancien regime features were clearly among the chief factors which made theological proficiency inferior to wealth and connection, when promotion was concerned. A bishop or the owner of a patronage, appointing his son or nephew to a living, cared but little for the actual theological ideas, or lack of them, demonstrated by the relatives they chose to appoint.29 Furthermore, the awareness of their relative isolation on theological and philosophical grounds (as Hutchinsonians), made the Hackney leaders less severe than expected in judging theological differences, albeit only within High Church circles. The chief criterion for alliance was the stand taken by the various theological factions on specifically political grounds. Thus, Marsh's theology could well be dangerous, but his marked and outspoken denunciation of the Cambridge Evangelicals and the British and Foreign Bible Society made him a good ally in the eyes of the Hackney friends. It was possible for Hutchinsonians of the Hackney Phalanx to respect such fierce theological opponents as Bishop Horsley (173 3-1806) since the chief goal of their activities was the defence of the status quo in Church and State. The accident of birth placed Baden Powell at the centre of an interesting and original movement pursuing cultural and political activities of great relevance to the fortunes of the Anglican Church in contemporary Britain. The familiar intercourse with men fully aware of the complex relationship between cultural and political developments alerted him to the necessity of relating social and political action to sophisticated intellectual standpoints. The conservative and indeed reactionary instincts of his relatives had positive connotations of great formative significance to the young Baden Powell. From his early years at Hackney, he learned that the movements of the enemy had to be carefully watched. The time of King and Church mobs was over. It 29

J. Wade, in his extremely successful Black Book (1820, 1832 edn.), p. 21, reported that Bishop Hobart of New York was shocked by the number of livings for sale listed in contemporary newspapers. A safer authority, J. Hunt, in a paper published in the Contemporary Review of 1870 (reprinted in Contemporary Essays, 1873, p. 13) bitterly complained that 'the traffic in Church livings has not ceased'. On Church patronage and 'the sale of souls', see M. J. D. Roberts, 'Private patronage and the Church of England, 1800-1900', Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 32 (1981), 199-223: in 1821, out of 10,693 benefits, 6,619 had private patrons. Of the irrelevance of theological training and private theological opinion for obtaining the required testimonials from the Bishops, see Bullock, History of the Training for the Ministry, p. 73. The consequence of structural malpractice on theological learning and doctrinal cohesion within the Anglican Church is a point often overlooked. Notwithstanding the inflationist use of the term ' orthodox Anglican theology' by historians and nineteenth-century polemicists, it is clear that it is impossible to provide a clear-cut definition of the expression for most of the nineteenth century. See the excellent discussion of this point in Ellis, Seven against Christ, pp. 121, 146, 150, 151.

20

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was increasingly counterproductive to ignore the theological and intellectual liveliness of Dissenters, Unitarians and radicals. The organizational structure of the Anglican Church left the expanding urban areas a vacuum which was being rilled by all sorts of social and religious movements often decidedly opposed to the Anglican Church and the unreformed Parliament. Baden Powell's relatives devoted all their efforts to counteracting the pressure from below. Mass popular education on Church principles and the building of new churches were measures providing defence against the threat of number. Yet, the threat of ideas had few valid opponents within the Anglican Church. Thus Baden Powell was sent to Oriel, the rising college in Oxford, where a group of dons were making a name for themselves, on account of their determination to meet the adversaries of the Church on theological, philosophical and scientific grounds. It was his relatives' hope that in providing young Baden Powell with the best education available, they would help breed a generation of High Churchmen capable of giving intellectual prestige to the Anglican Church. How it could happen that the ultra-conservative Hackney leaders sent one of their sons and pupils to a college made famous by the Oxford Movement leaders and their historians as the hotbed of' daring liberalism' is a question which will force a deep re-examination of long established views of political and ideological allegiances in early nineteenth-century Britain. It is appropriate firstly to provide a detailed examination of Baden Powell's early contributions to the British Critic and to the Christian Remembrancer and of his first major work, Rational Religion Examined (1826). A consideration of the epistemological and theological issues approached by Baden Powell, the Hackney protege and pupil of the Oriel Noetics, as the Oriel dons were named, will provide material for reassessing interesting developments in Oxford intellectual life during the 1820s and the early 1830s. Traditional and recent reconstructions of intellectual life in early and mid-Victorian England have customarily taken the years of the Reform Bill debate, of the birth of the Oxford Movement and of the writing of John Stuart Mill's System of Logic as the starting point for their interpretation of theological, philosophical and scientific debates. The investigation of the tenets put forward by Baden Powell and his allies during the 1820s and the early 1830s will open up new interpretative perspectives on this crucial period in the history of modern England.

Baden Powell's early theological papers

A series of entries in Baden Powell's manuscript journal covering the years between 1823 and 1826 help in establishing the authorship of reviews on theological subjects Baden Powell contributed to the British Critic and the Christian Remembrancer.1 In the former magazine Baden Powell published articles on Van Mildert's edition of Daniel Waterland's works, on John Davison's (1777-1834) Discourses on Prophecy and on John Davies's Inquiry into the Limits of Reason in the Investigation of Divine Truth. All these reviews appeared in 1824. During the closing months of 1824, and in early 1825, the magazine underwent a period of prolonged crisis. Publication was suspended until January 1827, when the third series of the British Critic appeared. During the closure Baden Powell sent his contributions to the Christian Remembrancer, a journal edited at the time by Renn Dickson Hampden (17901864), later the controversial Professor of Divinity at Oxford. Hampden was a cousin of the economist Nassau William Senior (1790-1864) and a lifelong friend of Richard Whately (1787-1863). In 1814 Hampden was elected Fellow of Oriel College. The circle of his intimates included Joseph Blanco White (1775-1841), the Spanish ex-Catholic priest, Philip Nicholas Shuttle worth (1782-1842), the Whig president of New College, Philip Bury (1772-1863) and John Shute Duncan. Through his friendship with Whately, William Bishop and Edward Copleston (1776-1849), Hampden was a frequent visitor to the Oriel common room, even after resigning his fellowship following marriage. His family, like Senior's, was linked to West Indian landed and commercial interests. It is worth mentioning that the Christian Remembrancer, the High Church journal edited by Hampden from 1825 to 1826, was established with strong financial support from West Indian merchants.2 Baden Powell was well acquainted with Hampden. Apart from the obvious Oriel connection, he probably met Hampden when the latter served as a 1

2

Baden Powell Papers, Baden Powell Manuscript Journal 1816-60, henceforth B.PJ. See bibliography for the list of papers Baden Powell contributed to the British Critic and the Christian Remembrancer. H. Hampden, 'Some Memorials of Renn Dickson Hampden (1871); S.Leon Levy, Nassau W. Senior (1970), p. 56; Yule, 'The impact of science', p. 85; Tuckwell, Pre-Tractarian Oxford^ pp. 128-64. 21

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Science and religion

Curate to H. H. Norris. The personal links between the Oxford 'liberal' most hated by the Tractarians and by the British Critic reviewers of the early 1830s, and the ultra-High Church Hackney leaders need some explanation. Thomas Mozley, the highly partisan chronicler of the Oxford Movement, felt the need to justify this embarrassing connection, and briefly commented that Hampden's curacy at Hackney simply indicated the occasional 'strange mishaps' of the old men of the Phalanx.3 The relationship between Hampden and the Hackney leaders was far from being the result of mere 'mishaps', but revealed instead the complexity of High Church alignments in the 1820s. The analysis of Baden Powell's early theological works will provide material towards identifying crucial features of High Church theology and politics in the early 1820s. Between 1825 and 1826 Baden Powell contributed seven papers to the Christian Remembrancer. These essays are of considerable importance, since they contained the first hints of a parting of the ways between the author and his Hackney relatives, as well as between the Oriel Noetics and the traditional High Church party. However, as we shall argue below, it is revealing that Baden Powell was sincerely convinced that his treatment of the question at issue - the theological foundation for the observance of the sabbath - in no way contradicted the teaching of Van Mildert and of other theological representatives of the Hackney Phalanx. Baden Powell believed that his solution of the sabbath question represented a perfectly coherent development of Oriel and Hackney Christian apologetic. Furthermore, it is also to be emphasized that the tone of his three contributions to the British Critic unambiguously expressed his conviction that Hackney and Oriel were two expressions of the same effort to restore Anglican intellectual and spiritual supremacy in British society. Thus, he welcomed with equal enthusiasm the edition of Waterland's works by Van Mildert and Davison's essay. It is useful to recollect that Van Mildert was, and is, persistently represented as the major interpreter of High Church 'orthodoxy', whereas the latter has been credited with being a central figure in the 'unorthodox' Noetic group.4 Davison's Discourses on Prophecy and Baden Powell's review of this work, provide the starting point for a first glance at theological concerns and the cultural priorities within High Church circles in the early nineteenth century. As is well known, the French Revolution and the European wars led to a renewed interest in prophetic literature. Millenarian hopes characterized working-class culture; millenarian fears equally appealed to High Church prelates and the clergy in general. The kind of prophetic exercise favoured 3 T. Mozley, Reminiscences Chiefly of Oriel College, 2 vols. (1882), vol. i, p. 339. * (Baden Powell), 'Works of the Rev. Daniel Waterland', B.C., 21 (1824), 624-38; {idem), 'Davison's Discourses on Prophecy', B.C., 22 (1824), 368-89. R. Soloway, Prelates and People (1969), pp. 41, 90. W. H. Mackean, The Eucharist Doctrine of the Oxford Movement (1933), P- 15.

Baden Powell's early theological papers

23

by the Hackney group was related to the complex rules of Hutchinsonian scriptural exegesis. This had survived well into the nineteenth century thanks to the efforts of churchmen, laymen and naturalists linked to the Hackney families. William Kirby, a friend of Jones and Watson whose entomological works were read and admired by generations of British naturalists, was a keen student of scriptural prophecies and millenarian chronology.5 Several scholars active in the 1790s and early 1800s applied a well-established prophetic tradition of millenarian computation in order to come to terms with the eschatological significance and import of the French Revolution and of Napoleon's dominion over Europe. Bishop Horsley, a figure of great authority with the Hackney friends despite his anti-Hutchinsonianism, spent the last years of his life in prophetic lucubrations. His catastrophic forecasts probably convinced him that the best thing to do was to spend the few years still available enjoying the full comforts of civilization, to the discomfort of his ruined heirs. Baden Powell senior himself had been enlisted to gather information confirming Horsley's and Kirby's prophetic hypothesis that Bonaparte, the leading candidate for Antichrist, was planning to restore the Jewish kingdom in Palestine: a sign widely regarded as the announcement of the millennium.6 The concern with the prophetic interpretation of European and English political events did not vanish with the defeat of Napoleon and revolutionary France. It survived well into the 1820s, though strict millenarianism was progressively abandoned within High Church circles. The British Critic editors gave ample space to reviews of prophetic commentaries. However, the tone of many articles grew increasingly sceptical regarding unguardedly detailed predictions. The concern with prophecies also had intellectual connotations wider than the popular hopes for a millenarian emancipation or the social anxiety of the rich and the powerful. Recent commentators on prophetic literature in the early nineteenth century have failed to mention that the apologetic appreciation of prophecy loomed large in the long tradition of the search for evidence for Christianity.7 The supporters of the Lockean theme of the reasonableness of Christianity argued that the fulfilment of prophecies was one chief assurance of the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testaments. Prophetic evidence probably enjoyed a status of reliability (to a certain extent) superior to that of miracles. Indeed, the credibility of miracles involved the question of the reliability of the witness, a topic of considerable philosophical s J. Freeman, Life of the Rev. William Kirby (1852), pp. 165-8, 235-6. D.N.B.; S. Horsley, Biblical Criticism of the First Fourteen Historical Books of the Old Testament, 4 vols. (1820); Soloway, Prelates and People, pp. 39-41; J. Freeman, Life of Kirby, pp. 238-41. On the tradition of prophetical exegesis in Britain see C. Webster, The Great Instauration (1975). 1 W. H. Oliver, Prophets and millennialists (1978); J. F. C. Harrison, The Second Coming: popular millenarianism (1979); D. M. Valenze 'Prophecy and popular literature in Eighteenth-Century England', Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 29 (1978), 75-92. 6

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debate in the closing decades of the eighteenth century. Prophecies could claim history and historically ascertained facts as their witness. The early Noetics made ample use of the evidential argument. They stressed that the Lockean tradition was a safe via media between what was regarded as the fanaticism of Dissenters and the daring rationalism of the Unitarians. The brand of prophetic inquiry advocated by the Hackney Phalanx was probably less sensitive to the result of the emphasis on prophecy as evidence for Christianity pointed out by Copleston, Whately and Davison. Yet the Hackney leaders themselves, together with wider sectors of the High Church party, had many reasons to welcome Davison's learned Discourses on Prophecy. Davison's work was viewed as a successful attempt at regaining the intellectual superiority of traditional High Church Christian apologetics and at vindicating the study of prophecy among the learned. The extravagant popular millenarianism, and implicitly the indulgence in millenarian exercises by leaders of the Church, represented, according to Davison, a perversion of the actual import and value of scriptural prophecies. Davison's treatise represented a significant step towards abandoning prophecies as instruments for the analysis of the contemporary world within High Church circles and the Hackney Phalanx in particular. Kirby himself, after devoting long years to unravelling prophetic riddles, eventually chose to keep to himself the result of his inquiries. The Hackney leaders were well informed of Davison's work, and of developments within prophetical literature. There is biographical evidence suggesting that from the early 1810s Van Mildert, the theological spokesman of the Hackney Phalanx and from 1814 Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, represented a channel of communication between Copleston, Whately and Davison - t h e rising generation of High Church intellectuals - a n d the Hackney men. The very fact that the British Critic published a very favourable review of Davison's work, written by Baden Powell, the young Oxford scholar of the Phalanx, clearly implied approval of the Discourses on Prophecy. Davison, the leading scholar of the early Noetic group, left the Oriel common room in 1817 and lived in relative isolation. Yet, like Copleston and Whately, he was active in discussing political and social issues. He took part in the 1819 debates on the reform of the Poor Laws and published a dialogue meant to provide a suitable antidote to the inroads made by radical culture among artisans. The crowning achievement of his scholarly career was the treatise Baden Powell reviewed. Davison's Discourses, severed from the background of the 1820 debates, have been almost totally neglected by historians writing on the Oxford Movement. 8 Instead of entering the field of prophetic speculation concerning the future of English or European society, Davison submitted the whole body of Old Testament prophecies to a critical analysis. 8

J. Davison, Remains and Occasional publications of the late Rev. John Davison (1840), Considerations on the Poor Laws (1817), and Discourses on Prophecy (1824); J. R. Poynter, Society and Pauperism (1969), pp. 233-4.

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The Lockean theme of the reasonableness of Christianity was coupled with the Butlerian didactic insight that there were as many mysteries and difficulties in human affairs and knowledge as in the revealed word. Thus, it was not surprising that commentators often found it difficult to explain prophetic passages. Indeed, this very difficulty reinforced the conviction that the scriptures contained much matter above the capabilities of the human understanding. The acknowledgement that there were prophecies unfulfilled, did not mean that Davison was convinced that the prophetic evidential argument was a weak one. He stressed that the fulfilment of the great majority of the scriptural prophecies decidedly proved the divine inspiration of the Bible. Davison was not particularly concerned with the precise chronological accuracy of prophetic predictions. His design was to emphasize the 'spiritual' and moral features of prophecies. He argued that at the time of the Jewish dispensation, enforced by the Mosaic law, the prophetic writings prefigured the spiritual dispensation to be delivered by Christ. According to Davison, prophets pointed the way towards a spiritual, individual religion, markedly different from the secular one sanctioned by the Jewish law. This interpretation of the role of prophetic writings derived from Davison's reflection upon the progressive nature of revelation. He argued that the Old Testament contained the history of the Jews from the harshness of the law indispensable for ruling primitive societies-to the spiritual liberty of the Gospel. 9 Bishop Stillingfleet, Baden Powell remarked, had already pointed out the intermediate place occupied by prophets between the Mosaic law and the Gospel. Davison was, however, the first nineteenth-century High Church commentator who put forward a fully developed theory of the progressive character of revelation. The scriptural emphasis on the observance of rituals gradually gave way to the emphasis on the spiritual, inward acceptance of revealed truth. As Baden Powell recapitulated, 'the fullest prophetic discoveries of Christ and his spiritual Kingdom were made concurrent with the decline and fall of the temporal kingdom of Israel... when the first dispensation began to be shaken, the objects and promises of the second began as it were to be substituted in its place.' 10 The concept of a radical differentiation between the Old and the New Testament was to play a considerable role in Baden Powell's intellectual development. It allowed him to define every passage or doctrine of the Old Testament narrative which appeared to contradict modern ethics, philosophy, or natural knowledge, as features of revelation necessarily adapted to primitive 9 Davison, Discourses on Prophecy, pp. 54, 302, 381. (Baden Powell), 'Davison's Discourses', p. 383. Davison's work was held in high esteem by Samuel T. Coleridge, Thomas Arnold and John H. Newman. As late as 1891, in his Contributions chiefly to the Early History of Cardinal Newman, Francis Newman remembered (pp. 128-9) t n e impression made upon him by the Discourses. See also F. W. Macran, English Apologetic Theology (1905), p. 84, and E. L. Williamson, The Liberalism of Thomas Arnold (1964), p. 36.

10

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social conditions and beliefs. Thus, according to Baden Powell, those who defended uncritical literal adherence to the letter of the Old Testament deeply misunderstood the different functions of the two dispensations. They were guilty of Judaizing tendencies, since they rejected the spiritual religion of Christ. However, during the 1820s Baden Powell had not yet developed all the conclusions he was ultimately to derive from Davison's remarks on the progressive character of revelation. In his review of John Davies's Inquiries into the Limits of Reason in the Investigation of Divine Truths Baden Powell insisted that the solidity of the evidence provided by miracles and prophecies compelled the rational Christian, and indeed all rational beings, to take the scriptures at their face value and to endorse the theory of the plenary inspiration of the Bible. As we shall argue below, Baden Powell was already trying to keep one door open in order to accommodate science with revelation. He therefore joined the chorus of commentators maintaining that the scriptures were not designed to teach philosophy or natural science, but the way to salvation. It is however to be emphasized that this view was put forward with extreme caution. No one within Church circles, Baden Powell included, insinuated or believed that there was any fundamental discrepancy between the Old Testament and modern natural sciences. In later years, Baden Powell became convinced that such a discrepancy existed. This conclusion led him to widen the gap between the Old and the New Testament, thereby enlarging the scope of Davison's original theory. The interesting point is that Baden Powell was unaware of the analogous conclusions reached by German philosophers and theologians. Davison's remarks on the progressive nature of the Christian dispensation originated from the English exegetical tradition, as Baden Powell himself pointed out. In later years, when the German higher criticism became known in Britain, and Baden Powell became acquainted-albeit often at second hand-with German theology, he had no difficulty in endorsing the view of the progressive enlightenment of the human race from the obscurity of paganism to the philosophical disclosures of modern times.11 Baden Powell's review of John Davies's work on the relationship between reason and religion has been mentioned above. There is no need at this stage to enter into a detailed examination of the apologetic scheme put forward by Davies and endorsed by Baden Powell. Indeed, the theme of the reasonableness of Christianity was fully developed in his Rational Religion Examined (1826), a work I shall later consider in some detail. I need only observe here that Davies's book represents a further confirmation of the popularity of the LockeButler apologetic tradition in contemporary High Church circles. 11

O. Pfleiderer, The Development of Theology in Germany Since Kant and its Progress in Great Britain Since 1825 (1890). On Baden Powell's relationship with German theology, see below, and ch. 12.

Baden Powell's early theological papers

27

It is clear that the Oxford Noetics and the young Baden Powell had more allies than hitherto supposed or acknowledged. It would be more correct to say that the 'reasonableness of Christianity' theme was widely discussed and upheld by several sections of the Church of England. The Locke-Butler tradition was seen as a viable approach to an intellectually aggressive Christian apologetic, powerful enough to scorn Unitarian pretences at the monopoly of rational and philosophical views on religious matters. Davies's pedantic and didactic treatise-a good commonplace dissertation, Baden Powell called i t received a prize from the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and Church Union of the Diocese of St David's. The Bishop of St David's, Thomas Burgess, was a staunch High Churchman and a vigorous opponent of the Unitarian aggression. He was a friend of Charles Daubeny and a frequent visitor at Hackney. Needless to say, he was the inspirer and leader of the diocesan S.P.C.K., and approved of Davies's dissertation. Thus, once again the apologetic strategy privileged by the Noetics found supporters in ultra-conservative sectors of the High Church. Baden Powell, still regarded as a member of the Hackney Phalanx, pointed out that the true 'rational religion' approach formulated by the Reverend Davies was capable of providing effective checks against' that sort of religion which makes so great pretensions to the exclusive title of a rational faith'. Contemporary readers had no difficulty in understanding that the Unitarians were the target of Baden Powell's ironic remark.12 Baden Powell himself took an active part in the anti-Unitarian campaign. This was hardly surprising, in view of the deep anxiety the Unitarian revival provoked amongst his Hackney relatives and within High Church circles. As pointed out when discussing the general features of the British Critic's and Christian Remembrancer's editorial policies in the 1810s and the 1820s, Unitarians were a constant target of reviewers and commentators contributing to the two papers. It could be argued that the success of the early Noetic theological and philosophical standpoint was partly due to the ability the group showed in counteracting Unitarian philosophical arguments. Baden Powell discussed the cultural dimension of the Unitarian threat in a series of papers on theological subjects he contributed to the Christian Remembrancer. The occasion for his three 'Letters to the Editor' was provided by the Unitarian claim that Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke advocated principles of theological inquiry and doctrine not dissimilar from those defended by contemporary British Unitarians. The questionable features in Newton's and Locke's theological standpoint could be easily explained by referring to the culture of their times; moreover, Baden Powell argued, the tenor of all their writings contradicted the false rationalism advocated by the Unitarians. Both thinkers actually insisted on 12

J. S. Harford, The Life of Thomas Burgess (1840), pp. 227, 293, 353, 473; (Baden Powell), 4 Davies's Inquiry', p. 457.

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the reasonableness of acknowledging mysteries in revelation. The classic fundamental assumption of Socinians, Baden Powell pointed out, was that the human mind, * enlightened by science in physical things, must be guided by analogy and congruity, and depend upon its own resources in the search after religious truth'. The Unitarian confidence in the powers of the human mind was not shared by those who spent years in scientific inquiries. The serious and dedicated pursuit of science induced habits of rigorous and cautious reasoning, which disproved the rash conclusions of Unitarian and Socinian philosophers.13 The question of the role of rational sophistication and philosophy in religious inquiries was different from the question of the misapplication of rational tools in religious debates and literature. Thus, Baden Powell took an interesting position in the debate on Unitarianism and German theology which characterized the middle 1820s. Indeed, the denunciation of the fallacies of Unitarianism loomed large in his review of Rose's Discourses on German theology and theological rationalism. In the late 1820s, Rose, the Christian Advocate at Cambridge, became acquainted with the Hackney Phalanx leaders. The more Van Mildert retired from scholarly pursuits - h i s edition of Waterland's works was his last literary effort-the more Rose took a leading role in the Hackney propaganda effort.14 Baden Powell was certainly acquainted with Rose and probably discussed theological and philosophical matters with him. There was undoubtedly much in Rose's Discourses to elicit his approval. He quoted at great length Rose's remarks on the fundamental difference between scientific and theological inquiries, a theme Richard Whately dwelt upon in similar terms. No new discovery was to be expected from scriptural exegesis. Rose argued that it was methodologically wrong to maintain that 'the theologian must mine for the long hidden treasure of truth, and like the naturalist must make new discoveries, and modify his beliefs accordingly'. Baden Powell was in entire agreement with Rose's theoretical approach to contemporary theological debates. He also praised Rose's denunciation of current trends in German theology, in particular their critique of miracles.15 Baden Powell knew very little of German theology, and in this he was no exception in early nineteenth-century England. He never made reference to «3 (Baden Powell), 'Philosophy and Socinianism', C.R., 8 (1826), 106; see also CJ?., 7 (1825), 566-75, and 7 (1825), 701-12; Yule, 'The impact of science', pp. 82-5. •4 Christopher Wordsworth, Master of Trinity, acted as intermediary between Rose and the Hackney Phalanx. He supported Rose against Hare in the 1825 competition for the chair of Greek at Cambridge. See Burgon, Lives of Twelve Good Men (1888), pp. 62-146, and N. M. Distad, Guessing at Truth (1979), pp. 50-1. In 1828 Archbishop Howley appointed Rose his chaplain, at the suggestion of Joshua Watson; the latter also financed the British Magazine, the quarterly Rose launched in 1832. Rose was a close friend of Bishop Hobart of New York, whom he met in Rome, in 1824. '5 H. J. Rose, The State of the Protestant Religion in Germany (1825), pp. 5-6; Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, vol. i, p. 260; R. Whately, The Use and Abuse of Party Feelings in Matters of Religion (1822), pp. 79-80.

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the works of Marsh, nor ever displayed any acquaintance with problems like the canon of the scriptures, or the authorship of Genesis. The reading of Rose's critique of German standpoints on miracles only gave him the occasion for comparing German theology with contemporary British Unitarianism, that is, for launching a new attack against the worst enemies of the Church. He did not deny that Unitarians never questioned the credibility of miracles, but argued that logical consistency might, and indeed would, have led their theology towards this inevitable outcome. Unitarians questioned the doctrine of incarnation and the atonement, though they professed belief in the resurrection of Christ. However, their a priori rejection of mysteries in Christianity was seen by Baden Powell as contradicting the belief in any form of miracles. The via media Unitarians proposed was therefore untenable.16 The review of Rose's Discourses represented the point of Baden Powell's strictest adhesion to the Hackney position. His enthusiasm for Rose's unsophisticated critique of German theology provides further insight into the complexity of theological alignments in the 1820s. Baden Powell approved of Rose's work. Whately, the alleged leader of the 'liberal party' within the Anglican Church, deeply disliked German theology and philosophy. On the other hand, Pusey, in later years the leader of the Anglo-Catholic movement, left Britain for Germany to see for himself how much truth there was in Rose's account of German theological studies. He came back convinced that the Christian Advocate had done little justice to theological inquiries carried on in the German universities.17 It is fair to point out that Rose's design was not to provide a critical and scholarly account of recent developments in German theology, but to emphasize the need for Church discipline against excessive freedom of inquiry. His aim was to define in a restrictive way the right of private judgement, a factor of notorious centrality in Protestant theology, by pointing out the excesses to which the principle had been carried. Furthermore, Rose wanted to stop the penetration of German theology at Cambridge, where Connop Thirl wall (17971875), Augustus William (1792—1834) and Julius Charles Hare (1789-1855) were looking with increasing sympathy to German philosophy and theology. Not wishing publicly to censure his friends, Rose chose to criticize German theology in general.18 16 17

18

(Baden Powell), 'State of Protestant Religion in Germany', C.R.y 8 (1826), 65-81. E. B. Pusey, An Historical Enquiry into the Probable Causes of the Rationalist Character Lately Predominant in the Theology of Germany (1828); it should be pointed out that Pusey himself limited his defence of German theology to the literal translation of long passages from the lectures of his friend and teacher Friedrich August Tholuck (1799—1877). In the second edition of his work, Rose accused Pusey of plagiarism: see also (Anon.), B.C., 6 (1829), 469— 85. D . W. Forrester, 'The intellectual development of E. B. Pusey, 1800-1850' (D.Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1967). In the preface to the first edition of his work, Rose also attacked Arnold's defence of Niebuhr; see also A. P. Stanley, Life of Arnold (1890 edn.), p. 45, letter dated 15 October 1825: 'it does grieve me to find persons of his standing quarrelling with their friends when there are

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Baden Powell did not doubt the accuracy of Rose's report. In his review he borrowed Rose's arguments against German rationalistic theology as ammunition for his own anti-Unitarian campaign. Yet, Baden Powell's wholehearted support for Rose's Discourses was limited to the approval of the polemical side of the Christian Advocate's denunciation of modern rationalism. Baden Powell shared Rose's preoccupation with the inroads 'the rationalistic system' was making in contemporary culture, but he was not convinced that the right answer to this phenomenon was to stress the need for Church authority. On the contrary, he thought it imperative to preserve 'the purity in doctrine' by carefully distinguishing divine revelation from human opinion, church formularies and rituals, which were justifiable only on traditional grounds. Clearly, Baden Powell was convinced that his reasonableness-ofChristianity approach, based on the evidential value of miracles and prophecies, was a sufficient guarantee of the credibility of the scriptures. Scriptural literalism and religion could both be defended by deploying the sophisticated epistemological and logical tools elaborated by Dugald Stewart or Copleston, rather than by appealing to Church authority. If this was the case, the insistence on Church authority was indeed tending to weaken the position of Christianity in a time dominated by scientific and philosophical advance. Thus, he set out to give a concrete instance of what he regarded as the correct procedure to adopt against critics and enemies. The application of his theological approach to specific doctrinal or liturgical issues led Baden Powell into difficulties with the more conservative sectors of the High Church and with his Hackney relatives. Richard Lloyd (d.1834), the pluralist Rector of Midhurst, Sussex, under whom Baden Powell served as curate, published in 1825 a treatise on preaching. Lloyd lamented the lack of observance of the sabbath. He argued that the sabbath prescription emanated from divine authority, and should have been enforced with greater efficiency by Church and State. Baden Powell agreed that the breaking of sabbath regulations had reached worrying dimensions. Yet, he was also convinced that Lloyd's approach to the question represented a good instance of the habit of defending Christian practices by claiming for them 'an authority which they really do not possess'. The habit of overstating one's own reasons was conducive to much harm, especially at a period when Socinians were asking for the suppression of the sabbath regulation, on the score that no scriptural authority, they argued, justified the transition from more than enough of enemies in the world for every Christian to strive against!'. J. J. Perowne and L. Stokes, Letters, Literary and Theological, ofConnop Thirlwall (1881), pp. 52-90. Trinity College, Cambridge, William Whewell Papers, correspondence with H. J. Rose and with Hare. It should be noted that Whewell kept an ambiguous middle ground between the two friends, letting Hare believe that he shared his views of German theology, but siding with Rose on conservative ecclesiastical and university policies. It is also important to emphasize that representatives of the so-called * Cambridge network* avoided public discussion of their theological and philosophical standpoints and differences: a fact often and wrongly interpreted as indication of identity of views. Rose had learned German during evening sessions with Whewell and Thirlwall, under the guidance of Hare.

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the Jewish sacred day to the Christian Sunday. On the opposite side of the theological spectrum, the 'fanatics', a name Baden Powell employed to describe Evangelicals, Methodists, and Dissenters of various denominations, were increasingly driving towards 'puritanical moroseness' in their obsession with the sabbath. They were convinced that the rules of the Jewish sabbath fully applied to the Christian Sunday. ^ It was therefore urgent to establish the authority of the sabbath prescription on sound and unequivocal grounds. Baden Powell did, however, fail to specify the grounds for sabbath rules. Indeed, his paragraph only stressed the need for a careful apologetic strategy to counteract sophisticated adversaries like Thomas Belsham or Unitarian intellectuals in general. Baden Powell otherwise felt it necessary only to state that 'the authority of the C h u r c h . . . is fully sufficient to enforce' the observance of the Christian Sunday regulations. However, contemporary readers and High Churchmen in particular perceived that he denied the divine institution of the Christian Sunday, without giving the indispensable justification for his assertion. Baden Powell's methodological remark that 'in the present age, when sober religion is assailed on all sides' it was extremely dangerous 'to assert as scripture what is, in truth, not scripture\ failed to satisfy convinced Sabbatarians. Baden Powell needed to explain his position.20 In a later contribution he acknowledged that 'we have of late been so unfortunate as to fall under the censure of some of our correspondents in a more than ordinary degree'. From the outset of his thorough discussion of defences of the sabbath, Baden Powell reassured the readers that his goal was to strengthen the Christian faith, by warning against self-defeating arguments often employed to defend crucial religious doctrines. It is noteworthy that the tone of Baden Powell's paper was anything but apologetic. His criticism of traditional Sabbatarianism betokened a mood of self-confidence. He defiantly applied the Noetic intellectual approach to heap scorn on his evangelical and High Church critics. The interpretation by Copleston and Whately of John Locke's and Stewart's philosophy provided the justification for Baden Powell's conclusion that strict Sabbatarianism failed to comply with elementary rules of correct reasoning. Sabbatarians neglected 'the very necessary step of setting out with a definition of the terms employed, and equally essential rule of keeping to that definition throughout'. Sabbatarians failed to pay attention to the context in which the scripture passages referring to the sabbath occurred. They overlooked the fundamental difference between the Jewish and the Christian dispensations.21 *9 R. Lloyd, Inquiry into Two Important Questions (1825), p. 126; (Baden Powell), 'Lloyd on Preaching', C.R., 7 (1825), 635-6. (Baden Powell), 'Lloyd on Preaching', C.R., 7 (1825), 636. 21 (Baden Powell), 'The Christian sabbath', C.R., 8 (1826), 192-6. For a discussion of Stewart's influence at Oxford, see below, ch. 3. It is important to stress that High Churchmen and the Oriel dons in particular deeply appreciated the apologetic potential of the epistemological critique of modern science put forward by the Scottish philosopher. 30

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Applying for the first time in his own works Davison's theory of the progressive nature of revelation, Baden Powell pointed out that the Christian dispensation superseded the Mosaic law, thereby abolishing the civil enforcement of religious practices. It was incumbent upon the Christian apologist to restore the purity of Christ's teaching by clearing away ' those incrustations which are formed around it, as it were, from alluvial depositions of the antiquated system of Judaism'. Thus, amateurish dialectic procedures and ignorance of biblical exegesis made Sabbatarians forget the essential distinction between 'a positive divine institution'-the Jewish sabbath-and a 'moral commandment' —the prescription of keeping one day in the week for religious practices. Sabbatarians were unwarranted in applying the scriptural ordinance relating to the Jewish sabbath to the apostolic and early Christian custom of setting apart Sunday, the first day of the Jewish week and the day of Christ's resurrection, for religious ceremonials.22 Contrary to his statement in the April contribution to the Christian Remembrancer, Baden Powell gave no prominence to the concept of Church authority. Obedience to the sabbath prescription, as to other precepts of the Mosaic decalogue, was due on account of their 'substance and spiritual force, and not in all their circumstantial particularity'. Only when defending himself from the charge of indirectly endorsing the infringement of the sabbath law, he mentioned ' the indispensable obligation, under which all members of the Christian Church lie, of observing with religious exactness the institutions of that Church'. Evidence below suggests that Sabbatarians failed to appreciate Baden Powell's attempt at stating the 'abstract principle' on which the sabbath prescription rested.23 Copleston had been the first member of the Oriel community who criticized the common view that the authority of the sabbath rested on a definite divine prescription. Copleston's remarks appeared in his review of William Buckland's (1784-1 &$6) Reliquiae Diluvianae (1823), where he criticized those who adopted a literal interpretation of the days of creation, because they felt that an allegorical interpretation would have shaken the scriptural foundation of the sabbath. Copleston argued that Christians were in fact breaking the Old Testament law, since they rested on the first day of the week, and not on the day originally chosen by God to contemplate his creative effort. Copleston, as Baden Powell was to do three years later, gave no further detail of his view on the sabbath. He simply stated that the authority of the Sunday prescription rested on a traditional rule which had 'been allowed gradually to supersede a positive command'. 24 22

(Baden Powell), ' T h e Christian sabbath', C.R., 8 (1826), 196. 3 'The Christian sabbath', pp. 204-7. *• (E. Copleston), 'Buckland - Reliquiae Diluvianae\ Q.R., 29 (1823), p. 164. Note that Baden Powell had employed a geological metaphor, when discussing current misconceptions on the sabbath, as if he was referring to Copleston's review of Buckland.

2

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33

I have found as yet no evidence of negative reaction to Copleston's remarks. However, when Copleston canvassed to be appointed Bishop of Oxford, it was reported that his theology had given occasion of suspicion of heterodoxy. 25 The fact that the authorship of the paper on Buckland was certainly known in literary and Church circles would provide support for the hypothesis that it was the denial of the scriptural foundation of the Christian Sunday which displeased conservative High Churchmen, let alone the Evangelicals. Three years later Baden Powell was attacked for maintaining analogous views. Indeed, it is fair to argue that Baden Powell was influenced by Copleston. He obviously did not learn to question the common view on the divine authority of the sabbath observance from his vicar Richard Lloyd, or from his Hackney relatives. A close analysis of Baden Powell's two papers reveals the extent of his debt to Copleston. Moreover, Copleston had a long-standing interest in the sabbath question. A passage in Copleston's diary suggests that the Provost of Oriel was evaluating the grounds of authority of the sabbath prescription from the early 1810s. Thus, the fact that Baden Powell had access to the Quarterly Review paper on Buckland - a n author he admired - a s well as to the conversation of the Provost of Oriel, would substantiate the claim that his selfconfident tone derived not only from the consciousness of his philosophical superiority over his adversaries, but also from his awareness that he was relying upon an authoritative precedent. 26 It is interesting to point out that the interpretation of the sabbath put forward by Baden Powell failed fully to satisfy his teachers, Whately in particular. In 1828, a few months after Copleston's failure to be elevated to the Oxford see, Richard Whately published his essay on the Epistles of St Paul, which contained a long footnote on the sabbath. Copleston was known to hold questionable views on the sabbath, and, according to the suggestion put forward above, his remarks on the Christian Sunday were held against him. Baden Powell, a pupil of the Noetics, caused considerable apprehension by expanding upon Copleston's remarks. Furthermore, the friendship of the editor of the Christian Remembrancer with the Oriel philosophers was well known in High Church circles. By printing Baden Powell's first and second paper on the sabbath, Hampden was open to the charge of endorsing the opinion of the contributor. There was sufficient ground to speculate that the Oriel Noetics were anti-sabbatarians, and indeed the charge was later publicized in a letter printed in John Bull considered below. 27 Richard Whately thought it advisable to point out that the Noetic criticism of Sabbatarianism was designed to put the sabbath prescription on an unassailable foundation. He also set out to correct some of the conclusions reached 2

s N. Gash, Mr. Secretary Peel (1961), p. 408. W. J. Copleston, Memoir of Edward Copleston (1851), p. 77. ? John Bull, 10 (1830), 141. See also Stanley, Life of Arnold, pp. 206-7, on Arnold's formulation of the Noetic standpoint on the Sabbath.

26 2

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by Baden Powell, though he never mentioned his pupil by name. The latter had stressed apostolic tradition and Church practice as the proper justification for the prescription. He also mentioned Church authority, but without further specification. Whately felt that this was precisely the point which needed to be clarified with the utmost urgency. The observance of the Sunday was of divine origin because Christ had given his Church full authority on matters of ritual and ceremonial. The Sunday prescription enjoyed the highest authority, as emanating from a Church empowered by Christ to regulate the collective observance of God's commandment. With Copleston and Baden Powell, Whately repeated that no direct scriptural command could be quoted in support of the change from the Jewish sabbath to the Christian Sunday. Understandably, those who objected to Baden Powell's formulation of the Noetic critique of the sabbath failed to be satisfied by Whately's remarks on the foundation of Church authority. The point at issue was not, according to many contemporary churchmen, whether the Church had or had not the power to ordain rituals and ceremonies, but whether the sabbath prescription rested on scriptural authority. It was clear that the Oriel school thought it did not. 28 The consideration of the debate on the sabbath has brought our analysis of the context of Baden Powell's early theological productions to the late 1820s. The parting of the ways between Hackney and Oriel was partly due to the polemic over the interpretation of the sabbath. Yet, as will become apparent, more dramatic events were responsible for bringing to the forefront theological differences within the High Church party. It will be argued below that theological differences became crucial only as a consequence of serious splits at a political level. It is indeed interesting that in the short term Baden Powell's interpretation of the sabbath did not produce major tensions with his Hackney relatives and his Oriel teachers. A few weeks after the publication of the second paper on the sabbath, Van Mildert wrote to Baden Powell approving the comments on Locke's and Newton's orthodoxy, and he did not mention the sabbath issue. On 5 December 1826, Edward Copleston wrote to Baden Powell inviting him to stand for the Savilian chair of Geometry. According to a later comment by Baden Powell his standpoint on the sabbath did not satisfy his relatives and teachers, who nevertheless regarded the matter as non-essential and strongly supported his application for the chair.29 Baden Powell's early theological papers revealed his sincere commitment to the Hackney cause and indicated his attempt at applying the apologetic tools elaborated by Van Mildert, Copleston, Davison and Whately to contemporary theological debates. It could be argued that he applied the Hackney strategy of fighting the enemy on its own grounds to the philosophical and 28

R. Whately, Essays on Some of the Difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul (1828), pp. 163-8. *> B.P.J., February 1826; 5 December 1826.

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theological confrontation with the Unitarians. Thus, from the early phases of his intellectual development Baden Powell approached contemporary cultural debates with the sense of realism which characterized the Hackney leaders' approach to the contemporary social and political tensions. Purely repressive measures were ineffective and impracticable, as the various prosecutions against political and theological radicals abundantly proved. The Hackney leaders opposed the spread of Dissenting and Unitarian religious and educational enterprises by actively promoting appropriate organizational countermoves. Baden Powell felt that the same strategy was effective at the theological and philosophical levels. In this, as it is already clear, he was not original. In the 1820s the attempt at opposing the Unitarian aggression with the help of the reasonableness of Christian tradition represented a move shared by many churchmen, from Van Mildert to Copleston and Whately. Baden Powell's concern with contemporary cultural events was not limited to the theological dimension. From the early years of his literary career, the consideration of contemporary science played a crucial role in Baden Powell's intellectual upbringing. His reflection on science and its epistemological and educational relevance reflected a further fundamental feature of Baden Powell's interpretation of the Hackney and the Noetic strategy. From his Hackney relatives he learned to pay close attention to the contemporary social and intellectual scene, in order to be ready to counteract any move unfavourable to Christianity and the Anglican Church. From his Noetic teachers he learned how to fight the apologetic battle at the level of highly sophisticated theological and philosophical concepts. Science and the philosophical dimension of scientific research provided crucial elements to Baden Powell's strategy.

Baden Powell's reflections on science in the early 1820s

Between 1823 and 1825 Baden Powell published in the British Critic ten papers on scientific subjects. Books on zoology, astronomy, scientific biography, transactions of learned societies, magnetism, geology, chemistry, hydrostatics and animal behaviour were in turn scrutinized in his contributions to the magazine. The great majority of Baden Powell's scientific contributions to the British Critic were generally concerned with summarizing the contents of the books under review. More relevant to the purpose of the present study were his observations on science, its methods and place in contemporary culture and academic education. The frequent remarks on the epistemological bearing of the scientific research under discussion, or introductory paragraphs of a philosophical drift, revealed interesting elements in his early reflections on science. Baden Powell's campaign on behalf of the introduction of scientific subjects into the university curriculum is also of great historical interest. As it will be shown in chapter 9, the Oxford debate on the reform of the statutes in which Baden Powell participated during the 1820s was characterized by an insistence on the speculative and philosophical dimensions of scientific pursuits. As is well known, the concept of a liberal, non-professional education dominated the educational policies of both English universities. Scientific pursuits, with the exception of the 'liberal' mathematical disciplines at Cambridge, were thought to be unfitted for undergraduate studies, although it was acknowledged that the gentleman scholar could find it instructive and amusing to take some interest in chemistry or mineralogy. Baden Powell certainly felt he had to convince reluctant academic authorities that modern natural investigation required high levels of intellectual and philosophical sophistication. His first goal was therefore to dispose of the traditional and popular view that scientific activities were only concerned with mechanical manipulation and aimed at purely practical results. Baden Powell did not deny the relationship between science and praxis. Thus, for instance, he acknowledged the importance of Peter Barlow's studies on the influence of the iron parts of ships on nautical compasses. He praised the useful application made possible by Barlow's discovery. In an interesting review of Robert 36

Baden Powell on science in the early 1820s

37

Woodhouse's A Treatise on Astronomy, Baden Powell also mentioned the contribution of astronomical observation to the art of navigation. Yet the passages considering the application of science to practical ends were significantly the ones in which the 'liberal' features of scientific investigation were stressed. The appreciation of Barlow's practical contribution to oceanic navigation gave occasion for a spirited defence of the speculative theoretical dimensions of the study of magnetism. Baden Powell focused on the second part of Barlow's book, where the scientist put forward his theory of magnetism. He pointed out that the theoretical parts of the work were less important from the practical point of view, but were nevertheless the most interesting, on account of ' the beauty and universality of the analytic formulae deduced, and . . . the profound skilfulness and fertility of invention displayed in the mathematical reasoning'. An emphasis on the aesthetic and intellectual potentialities of the physicomathematical sciences characterized also the concluding remarks on Barlow's researches. Baden Powell expressed his conviction that, independent of the practical application of Barlow's theories, their elegance recommended them to the 'philosophical student, whose enquiries are stimulated by the intrinsic beauty of scientific truth, rather than by the practical advantages to which it may be made subservient'.1 The remarks on the usefulness of astronomy for the art of navigation were significantly qualified by the comment that theoretical astronomy had actually fulfilled its duties towards the art. Historically speaking, the end of the technological utility of astronomical investigations had not meant the end of the science. Indeed, the reverse had been the case. Recent advances in mathematical sciences and improved instruments increasingly added to the precision and scope of astronomical observation. Theoretical astronomy in particular, as Laplace's work had recently demonstrated, was immensely helped by the refinement of mathematical methods. Baden Powell did not deny that the development of astronomy would have helped towards the solution of intricate problems in the field of plane and physical astronomy. Philosophical commentators, however, agreed that any significant progress in theoretical astronomy was to be evaluated in terms of the intellectual advance it represented. Indeed, 'the utility of every fresh accession to knowledge, as it tends to exalt and improve the mental faculties, must surely be admitted by every reflecting mind'. 2 Baden Powell tried to convince his academic readers that the utility of astronomical discoveries was intellectual, not practical. If this was the case, then disciplines like astronomy or physics were entitled to a better place and higher consideration within the ideology of liberal education. There was no 1 2

(Baden Powell), 'Woodhouse's Treatise on Astronomy\ B.C., 20 (1823), 155-6; (idem), 'Barlow on magnetic attractions', B.C., 19 (1823), 168, 177. (Baden Powell), 'Woodhouse's Treatise', p. 156.

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contradiction, in Baden Powell's eyes, between the pursuits of modern science and the aims of liberal education; the votaries of the latter claimed to be concerned with the general training of the mental faculties, the teachers of the former actually contributed to their development. One of Baden Powell's most cherished schemes, the adaptation of the academic curriculum to the intellectual priorities of the time, found expression in these early publications. The tone of his remarks, and the tactics he pursued, were significantly different from his later aggressive standpoint on this issue. Forced to abandon any hope of achieving appropriate reform by working from within, during the 1830s Baden Powell supported the proposal of opening the university to Parliamentary inquiry and intervention. In the early 1820s there seemed, however, to be no reason why reform could not be achieved by operating within the institution. To some extent, Baden Powell was following a policy he learned at Hackney. His relatives had to fight hard to convince their friends and Anglican brethren that mass education could not be opposed but had instead to be directed and supervised. Baden Powell was convinced that scientific knowledge was increasingly becoming a crucial element of the modern world view. It was therefore appropriate that the Anglican universities made a positive effort to gain control of the scientific movement in its most 'philosophical' dimensions. The plan he devised received help from the very animosity displayed by the radical critics of the Established Church. The attacks launched from various quarters against the lack of educational and specifically scientific contribution made by the English universities to contemporary culture, gave by reaction considerable publicity to the few examples of scientific life within the universities, particularly achievements at Cambridge in mathematics. Baden Powell himself, in his review of The Life and Remains of the Reverend Daniel Clarke praised the efforts which led to the establishment of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. The society's activities met the approval of the friends of science throughout Britain, Edinburgh reviewers included. Thus, the insistence on the scientific reliability of the research pursued at Cambridge fulfilled functions wider than the justification of science. It gave occasion for polemical remarks against the 'northern calumniators and ignorant political economists', as Baden Powell put it.3 Attacks against the academic reputation of Oxford and Cambridge were becoming a common feature of the activities of a host of reformers and radicals. The Edinburgh Review, the successful Black Book by the Benthamite John Wade (1788-1875), and the extreme radical publications by Richard Carlile (1790-1843), though differing on many substantial points, agreed in condemning the inactivity of the unreformed religious and educational establishment. As might be expected, the editors of the British Critic supported the efforts made 3 (Baden Powell), 'Life and Remains of the Rev. E. D. Clarke\ B.C., 22 (1824), 519; (idem), 'Hydrostatics, mechanics and dynamics', B.C., 23 (1825), 163.

Baden Powell on science in the early 1820s

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to defend the honour of the universities and of their scientific record. Typically, Baden Powell's review of physical textbooks published at Cambridge opened with an indignant defence of the universities from the accusation of being 'content to grow old and fat in the errors and prejudices of former ages, and never manifest any of the spirit of improvement so rigorously and continually exerted in all other places and all other institutions, and which form the characteristic boast of modern times'. 4 Baden Powell argued that the presence of the Whewells, the Peacocks and the Herschels at Cambridge showed that the attacks were unjustified. Yet there were no comparable examples to be quoted on behalf of Oxford. His general defence of the universities turned into a denunciation of the educational and scientific shortcomings at Oxford. Baden Powell compared the vitality of Cambridge with the stagnation prevailing in his university. In past centuries, he pointed out, the Radcliffe Observatory had been made famous by the activities of astronomers like Wallis, Halley and Bradley. In modern times, 'how little, even of their names is known', he sadly commented. Notwithstanding his fame, the present Professor of Astronomy was rarely able to collect a class. When he was fortunate enough to arouse the interest of a few young students, the number of those attending kept falling as mathematics was increasingly required to follow the train of the demonstrations. Thus, Baden Powell concluded, the success of scientific disciplines in modern universities could not be left to the individual efforts of enthusiastic practitioners: 'It is in vain that at the Observatory every explanation, encouragement, and invitation is afforded, if there be no corresponding stimulus in the schools'* Baden Powell's insistence on the liberal dimension of science was related to his awareness of the need for deep and substantial reform of the curriculum. Yet it would be wrong to reduce his emphasis on the liberal features of scientific pursuits to merely academic, or politically motivated manoeuvrings. Such a conclusion would prevent a right appreciation of Baden Powell's ^ J. Wade, The Black Book; or, Corruption Unmasked! (1820); R. Carlile, An Address to Men of Science (1821); (Anon.), * Calumnies against Oxford', E.R., 16 (1810), 158-9; (Baden Powell), 'Hydrostatics', p. 163. 5 (Baden Powell), * Woodhouse's Treatise\ p. 145. Baden Powell was clearly limiting his remarks to the state of physico-mathematical disciplines at Oxford. The geological lectures delivered by Buckland, and the ones on chemistry by Charles Daubeny attracted considerable attention. Yet, the audience was almost exclusively composed of dons and visitors. Moreover, at the time there was little prospect of including geology and chemistry in the university curriculum, whereas elements of mathematical and physical knowledge were part of the examination system. This fundamental distinction between disciplines within the curriculum, and the ones which were excluded, is often overlooked in the literature. See for instance Rupke, The Great Chain of History (1983). On Buckland's lectures, see J. M. Edmonds and J. A. Douglas, ' William Buckland... and an Oxford Geological Lecture', Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 30 (1976), 141-6, and Edmonds, 'The founding of the Oxford readership of geology', 34 (1979), 33—51; on Daubeny's lectures, see D . R. Oldroyd and D. W. Hutchings, 'The chemical lectures at Oxford of Charles Daubeny', Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 33 (i979)> 217-59.

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reflections on the role of modern mathematics in the future prospects of physical investigation. He sincerely believed that the more exciting developments of modern science derived from the investigation of highly speculative questions in contemporary analytics. In his review of Barlow's book the mathematical excellency of modern physical sciences was recommended to the attention of the philosophical student. Baden Powell described the progress of the inquiry which had led Barlow to propose the somewhat heretical concept of a tangential force at variance with the rectilinear action of orthodox Newtonian forces. The concept of tangential action was proposed by Barlow in order to explain the rotatory effect induced in a magnetized needle by a wire conducting galvanic electricity and placed at an appropriate distance. Barlow's formula, representing the angular variation of the needle's position with respect to the wire, excited Baden Powell's admiration for the power of analytic procedures, which 'in an expression composed of four algebraic terms, can sum up a statement of every possible case, and concentrate in general terms, what it actually requires the three following pages of the volume... to explain, in the detail of ordinary language'.6 Baden Powell's appreciation of the theoretical and mathematical features of contemporary physical inquiry derived from his deep admiration for the work of the younger generation of Cambridge mathematicians. We have already mentioned his early contacts with the Cambridge theological and scientific milieu. Hugh James Rose and Christopher Wordsworth (i774-1846) were frequent visitors to the Hackney families and relied on their support for their ascent in the religious and the academic establishment. Wordsworth's appointment to the prestigious position of Master of Trinity College in Cambridge was due to the influence of his Hackney mentors. His obsessive concern for his health forced him slowly to give up active duty, thus favouring the emergence at Trinity of an active group of young mathematicians and naturalists, which maintained the name of the College. Rose, who later in life developed a positive dislike for what he regarded as the pretence of physical and natural sciences to philosophical and cosmological status, in his early days at Cambridge paid amateurish attention to mathematical subjects, though according to Whewell with poor results.7 As is well known, mathematical concerns were favoured at Cambridge by the Newtonian tradition. Mathematical proficiency was often the road to academic prestige and church preferment. Baden Powell probably enjoyed many opportunities of gaining first-hand knowledge of the new trends developing in Cambridge scientific studies, particularly in mathematics. It should also be mentioned that Rose was a close friend of Whewell, and represented for 6 7

(Baden Powell), 'Barlow on magnetic attractions', pp. 175, 176. Webster, Joshua Watson, p. 26; Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, passim; British Library, Wordsworth Papers, Ms Add 43.136, fols. 182-204; Trinity College, Cambridge, C. Wordsworth Diary; I. Todunter, William Whewell, 2 vols. (1876), vol. ii, p. 15.

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Baden Powell a privileged channel of communication with Cambridge. Furthermore, as already pointed out, the British Critic, under the editorship of the Hackney appointees, was actively publicizing and patronizing the scientific achievements of the universities. There is little doubt that the scientifically oriented atmosphere of the sister university exercised a deep influence on young Baden Powell. He had early contacts with Whewell and Herschel on account of his own experimental researches on light and heat.8 He was easily won to the side of the scientific reformers. His youthful enthusiasm for the potentialities of the new mathematical methods also characterized most of the papers on physical subjects he contributed to the British Critic. When reviewing Miles Bland's work on hydrostatics and Whewell's textbook on mechanics and dynamics, Baden Powell engaged in interesting, albeit parochial reflections on the advantages and shortcomings of the French methods. He warned that the undisputed merits of the French school did not justify an eager adoption of foreign style by the British mathematicians. The tendency to fall into a trivial habit of imitation was to be checked by producing 'good and extensive works in our own language'. Baden Powell reproached the French school of the Pronys, Poissons and Amperes for tiresome diffuseness and lack of geometrical concision in their exposition. This last remark would certainly have sounded odd to his French colleagues, as it does to modern readers. Yet, the reviewer conceded that the elegance of French mathematical writings was indisputable. English scientific productions, Baden Powell remarked, 'have till of late seemed as if designed for the workshop'. He predicted that taste would be brought to bear on the stylistic treatment of the mathematical portion of physical research. After all, as he pointed out, ' the language of analysis is as much under the dominion of laws of good taste as ordinary language'.9 Baden Powell's stress upon the rules of symmetry and upon the formal simplicity of the mathematical expression of experimental data was not, however, dictated by mere considerations of taste or by the wish to emphasize the 'liberal' nature of scientific investigation. The discussion of the merits of the analytical treatment of experimental findings had theoretical as well as pedagogical implications. According to Baden Powell, the qualities of the mathematical treatment of experimental data helped the student to grasp the essential elements of the inquiry. It also led the naturalist to consider the possibility of combining together, with the help of the analytic methods, the results of single experiments, thus proceeding towards a more general theory. Baden Powell regarded mathematics as the key towards higher intellectual 8 9

B.P.J., 1818-30. (Baden Powell), 'Hydrostatics', pp. 166, 163-4, 1 7 I » IQ 8- For relevant background information and bibliography, see M. Crosland and C. Smith, 'The transmission of physics from France to Britain, 1800-1840', Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 9 (1978), 1-61.

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and aesthetic dimensions of scientific investigation. The use of differential calculus produced results unattainable by the old fluxional methods. The refinement of mathematics made it possible to produce comprehensive and highly abstract physical theories. It was his conviction that mathematics would eventually establish the title of the physical sciences to a place in the liberal curriculum. A further, powerful source of inspiration to young Baden Powell's reflections on science and its methods was Dugald Stewart's Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. There is no comprehensive study of the influence of Stewart on British philosophy in the early nineteenth century. The almost exclusive focus on figures like Samuel Taylor Coleridge or Jeremy Bentham has till very recently prevented a detailed analysis of a wide range of philosophical ideas debated by English intellectuals of the first three decades of the nineteenth century. Of the major streams of thought which characterized this period, Stewart's philosophy certainly constituted one essential tributary, particularly as far as High Church circles were concerned. W. R. Lyall, a close friend of the Phalanx, wrote two interesting reviews of Stewart's works for the Quarterly Review. Stewart's Elements was also extensively quoted by Copleston and Whately.10 As far as Baden Powell was concerned, the influence of Stewart was of primary importance to his early reflections on science. Baden Powell met W. R. Lyall when the future Dean of Canterbury was the editor of the British Critic•, and discussed with him his own subsequent contribution to the magazine. Lyall, though increasingly critical towards Stewart on account of the latter's defence of Hume, still admired the Elements. It is however significant that Baden Powell started a systematic reading of Stewart's work in the early months of the year 1822, as if he desired to confer philosophical dignity upon his scientific contributions to the British Critic. The only other philosophical work which received special mention in Baden Powell's journal was, in later years, John Stuart Mill's System of Logic.11 The influence of Stewart upon Baden Powell was particularly marked with respect to two major points of his early reflections on science: his emphasis on the philosophical relevance of scientific technical language and his critical remarks on the role of hypothesis in science. Both were clearly derived from 10

D. Stewart, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i (1792), vol. ii (1814), vol. iii (1827): quotations will be from Sir W.Hamilton edn. (1854-60); (W. R. Lyall), 'Stewart's Philosophical Essays', Q.R., 6 (1811), 1-37; (idem), 'Stewart's Philosophy of the Human Mind\ Q.R., 12 (1815), 281-317; E. Copleston, An Enquiry into the Doctrine of Necessity and Predestination (1821), p. 12; on Copleston and Stewart see E. Copleston (ed.), Letters of the Earl of Dudley to the Bishop of Llandaff (1840), pp. 16, 21-2, 191: J. W. Ward, Lord Dudley, had been a pupil of both Stewart and Copleston. On the Copleston-Stewart relationship, see P. Corsi, 'The heritage of Dugald Stewart', paper read at King's College Cambridge, July 1981, forthcoming in Nuncius. Annali di Storia della Scienza, 2, no.2 (1987), 89-144; R. Whately, The Right Method of Interpreting Scripture (1821), pp. 84, 87, 106, 11920 and Remains of the Late Edward Copleston (1854), pp. 99-102. " B. P. J., January 1822.

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his reading of Stewart's work. The consideration of the linguistic features of philosophical, theological, or scientific debates was not a novelty at Oxford, nor in English culture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. A tradition wider than that represented by the single figure of Dugald Stewart made linguistic and even etymological considerations the key element of philosophical and theological polemics. However, Stewart provided in his Elements an updated historical and critical assessment of these issues. Moreover, in his attempt to vindicate the superiority of the philosophy of the human mind, and of philosophers, over the physical sciences and the scientists, Stewart provided a detailed account and critique of French debates on science.12 Contemporaries on both sides of the Channel regarded the scientific revolution promoted by Lavoisier and Haiiy, Laplace and Cuvier as the clear indication that a new era had started in the history of humanity, and philosophy. The inquiries of Locke and Condillac suggested new ways of conducting scientific investigation, based on sophisticated logical and linguistic considerations. In their turn, the results obtained in modern disciplines like chemistry and crystallography, comparative anatomy and taxonomy vindicated the validity of the method, and suggested its application to all intellectual enterprise, from theology to political economy. Stewart did not agree that the philosophy of the human mind had to give way to pure epistemology. In order to vindicate his views, however, he was forced to engage in lengthy discussion of contemporary science and epistemology. It was this feature of the Elements that made the book attractive to readers as different as James Mill and Copleston, David Ricardo and W. R. Lyall, Nassau Senior and John Stuart Mill.1^ Relevant features of Stewart's analysis of philosophical and scientific language deeply influenced Baden Powell's teachers at Oriel. As I have shown elsewhere, Copleston and Whately often quoted from the Elements when discussing the problem of the epistemological foundation of modern theories in political economy. The methodological priorities which made Nassau Senior insist upon 12

For an impressive account of debates on the philosophy of language in England from 1780 to i860 see H. Aarsleff, The Study of Language in England (1967), where detailed attention is paid to the work of Stewart. For Prof. AarslefF's valuable studies on English and European philosophy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see his From Locke to Saussure (1982). *3 On the French debate on the role of language, and linguistic combinatory procedures, in modern science, see P. Corsi, * Models and analogies', in G. Montalenti and P. Rossi (eds.), Lazzaro Spallanzani (1980), pp. 381-96 and Oltre il Mito. Lamarck e le scienze naturali del suo tempo (1983), ch. 1; on the relationship between Stewart and French science, and on the influence exercised by the second volume of the Elements on thinkers such as James and John Stuart Mill, see P. Corsi, 'The heritage of Dugald Stewart'. The thesis that Stewart was a central, albeit controversial, figure in early nineteenth-century philosophical debates has recently been confirmed in studies by R. Yeo, 'An idol of the market-place', History of Science, 23 (1985), 251-98, and B. M. Fontana, Rethinking the Politics of Commercial Society (1985). N. De Marchi has written on the influence exercised by Stewart on debates on the method of political economy. S. Rashid, a pioneer of studies on the Noetics and their philosophical outlook, is not aware of the extent of Stewart's influence at Oxford: see his recent 'Dugald Stewart's "Baconian" methodology and political economy', Journal of the History of Ideas, 46 (1985), 245-57.

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the axiomatic nature of political economy as a science, different from the realm of concrete political application, also derived from Stewart's discussion of the status of credibility and of the epistemological reliability of physical and natural sciences. As we shall consider below, the religious formulation of Stewart's linguistic analysis by the Noetics deeply influenced Baden Powell's early theological outlook. The young scholar was however the first member of the Oriel group systematically to deploy Stewart's ideas in his epistemological reflections.14 Stewart wrote interesting passages on the role of technical terminology in science, a point French scientists following the lead of Condillac had placed at the forefront of epistemological debates. A keen reader of contemporary scientific literature, Stewart argued that the introduction of technical words into the vocabulary of any science indicated that a notable step forward was being made in the progress of that science. Indeed, he claimed, the more the scientific terminology diverged from the popular use of language, the more precise and unambiguous the meaning of the single terms would become. In a paragraph of the second volume of the Elements headed 'Of Language Considered as an Instrument of Thought', Stewart insisted that it was essential to embark upon a close analysis of ' the branch of logic which relates to the use of words'. He also warned that the neglect of this crucial aspect of scientific procedures would have serious consequences on the progress of scientific research.15 Following Stewart's remarks, Baden Powell praised the philosophical caution showed by Woodhouse in his Treatise on Astronomy, where the astronomer constantly linked the new terms introduced to the relevant specific passage of the inquiry. In this way, the reader was appropriately and philosophically introduced 'to those technical words, which it is necessary for the student to take out of the ordinary acception, and limit to the designation of some peculiar ideas belonging alone to the phenomena under consideration'. 16 According to Baden Powell, modern geology suffered because of the scant attention paid to the relationship between technical terminology and theory. Having considered controversies on the attribution of strata to different formations, Baden Powell granted that such discussions originated from specific technical reasons. However, they also 'frequently arise merely from that want of due discrimination in the use of terms, from that most common source of dispute, the neglect of definition V? The value of Conybeare's and Phillips's geological inquiries was increased by their correct appreciation of the relation14 P. Corsi, 'The heritage of Dugald Stewart'. '5 D. Stewart, Elements, vol. i, p. 51; vol. ii, pp. 97-113, 100. 16 (Baden Powell), 'Woodhouse's Treatise', p. 146. «7 (Baden Powell), 'Geology of England and Wales', B.C., 20 (1823), 288; W. D. Conybeare and W. Phillips, Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales (1822).

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ship between theory and technical terminology. Having paid ' a close attention to the perspicuity of terms', the two authors made use of generalizations ' only in reference to their most proper and legitimate objects'. Though a very young science, geology quickly became a very popular branch of scientific inquiry. As typical with many sciences in their infancy, the reviewer explained, geology had been characterized by a succession of controversial theories struggling for supremacy. Baden Powell believed that most disputes were due to the fact that 'different parties have given names borrowed from their peculiar theoretical views, and often conveying descriptive ideas, which are far from being universally applicable'. The inductive procedure had been reversed, greatly damaging the prospects of scientific progress in geology. The only safe way towards the building of theories was by proceeding through carefully defined steps, thus avoiding the inertial effect of careless definition. Thoughtless definitions were considered by Baden Powell, as well as by Stewart, to be highly misleading, especially when they became incorporated into a theoretical framework interpreting classes of phenomena. 18 His insistence on the necessity of following a cautious path of induction did not mean, however, that Baden Powell concurred in the 'prevailing spirit' of opposition to the use of hypotheses and hypothetical theories in contemporary geology and in science in general. A British Critic reviewer maintained that 'geologists have gradually relinquished theory and gained ground in real knowledge. Discovery has, in a great measure, banished the intrusive spirit of hypothesis from our class-rooms, our memoirs, our transactions, and essays V* The identification of theory with hypothesis which emerged from this passage, and the condemnation of both theory and hypothesis as synonymous with bad science, seemed to be rather popular in the 1810s and the early 1820s. Moreover, the weight of a traditional interpretation of the Newtonian orthodoxy - whatever Newton himself thought on the subject - gave authority to the emphasis on the correlation between scientific progress and the abandonment of hypothesis in science. With his usual display of sound learning, Stewart authoritatively tackled this crucial and delicate issue. He stressed the heuristic value of hypotheses, even of false ones. He also contested the philological accuracy of regarding the famous Newtonian Scholium as the sacred origin of the denunciation of hypotheses. Newton, Stewart pointed out, probably had Descartes's vortices in mind, when he declared 'Hypotheses non fingo'. Authorities ranging from David Hartley (1705-59) to Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich (1711-87) and James Gregory (1753-1821) were marshalled to support the conclusion that 'although a knowledge of facts must be prior to the formation of legitimate 18 (Baden Powell), 'Geology of England and Wales', pp. 287-90. *9 (Anon.), 'Boue's Essay on the Geology of Scotland', B.C., 16 (1821), 652.

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theory; yet a hypothetical theory is generally the best guide to the knowledge of connected and of useful facts'. 20 This was also Baden Powell's opinion. In his paper on geology he declared his opposition to the building of theories unsupported by inductive procedures. However, he also expressed his strong disapproval of the current dogmatic attitude against hypotheses. The historical development of science offered, he argued, numerous instances in which 'valuable facts have often been elicited in the ardent pursuit of a most visionary theory, and discoveries of real importance, cast aside in the enthusiasm of following up some fanciful hypothesis, have been subsequently treasured up, and found to possess infinitely more value than the speculations which gave them birth'.21 A further interesting reflection developed from these considerations. Baden Powell wondered whether the increasing number of gentlemen geologists, enthusiastically collecting facts, were really helping the advance of science. It was indisputable that the diffusion of a general taste for geological observation was bound to advance the process of collecting data. Nevertheless, this very positive feature of the popularity of the subject obscured the crucial role of 'bold and original ideas' in the progress of scientific discovery. In this respect too Baden Powell was following the lead of the Scottish philosopher and of his Oriel teachers. Stewart, Copleston and Whately extolled the indispensable 'philosophical' dimension of science, and the consequent superiority of the philosopher over the mere practitioner. It should be pointed out that Baden Powell's emphasis on the role of ideas and hypotheses in science was not limited to the vindication of academic and genteel science in general. Important in his early reflections on science was a refusal to regard scientific progress as a function of the summation of data derived from elementary observations. Awareness that science cannot be reduced to a simple manipulation of data, and the acknowledgement of the role of hypothesis in science, guided Baden Powell's later epistemological reflections. His realistic attitude towards the sinuous ways of scientific knowledge also provided the spur for his acceptance of less orthodox scientific hypotheses and doctrines, such as the theories of evolution put forward from the early 1800s to explain the succession of beings throughout the ages of the earth. The analysis of Baden Powell's early papers on scientific subjects provides 20

21

Stewart, Elements, vol. ii, p p . 402, 406. For a recent comment on Stewart's defence of hypotheses in science, and for the relevant bibliographical information, see Yeo, ' A n idol o f the market-place'. A point which still needs further investigation is the relationship between the intense debate on the role of hypothesis and hypothetical theories which characterized the French scientific and cultural periodical literature o f the years 1796-1820 on the o n e hand, and Dugald Stewart on the other. Systematic investigation of contributions to periodicals on both sides of the Channel is proving particularly rewarding. It is m y intention to publish a study on this subject. (Baden Powell), 'Geology of England and Wales', pp. 285-6; cf. Conybeare and Phillips, Outlines of Geology, p. xliv.

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material for a brief consideration of the first stage of his intellectual development. Baden Powell had early and strong views on the subject of science as an educational and cultural practice. His remarks on the role of mathematics in modern physical sciences and on the increasingly liberal nature of the highly abstract physico-mathematical sciences, together with his vindication of the philosophical dimension of scientific discourse, reveal the complex but integrated nature of his early views on science. It would be misleading, therefore, to emphasize any one dimension as exclusively oriented by philosophical or political or pedagogical aims, or as simply stemming out of his scientific concerns. His comments reveal awareness that the modern calculus, as applied to physics by the French school, was changing the nature and the image of the physico-mathematical disciplines. Baden Powell was convinced that scientific procedure - and indeed, the very popularity of scientific disciplines - was becoming a central feature of contemporary culture. The apologists of science were giving clear warning that they would not accept the intellectual leadership of Anglican academics who knew little and cared less for science. With these factors in mind he argued for improving the standards of scientific education at Oxford and recommended suitable changes in the curriculum and the examination system. At the same time, he stressed the elitist nature of scientific investigation and of theoretical activity. Science had to be cultivated in the universities, but there was to be no doubt that the layman could not judge the sophisticated fabric of science. In this too he was a pupil of Stewart, who had scorned those who opposed the successes of physical sciences to the alleged lack of progress in mental philosophy. For Stewart and for Baden Powell the Christian philosopher aware of science was to occupy the highest place in the hierarchy of intellectual authority. He was to lead the Church through the dangers of the pride of science, of demagogical appeals to reason, of attacks against the credibility of revelation launched in the name of science. This was the programme the young Oxford man had in mind for himself, and for his academic colleagues. The relationship between Baden Powell's attitude towards science and what his Hackney relatives thought on the subject is also worth comment. There is minimal information which might allow a positive identification of the views on science held by the leaders of the Phalanx. However, the evidence does suggest that the Hackney men took a keen interest in science and technology. They toured the factories around London and were eager to visit workshops where new production techniques were applied. Some of their inspirers and allies were active in debating scientific issues. Bishop Horsley, a favourite authority with the Hackney leaders, produced an edition of Newton's work. William Jones of Nayland and William Kirby propagated a revised version of eighteenth-century Hutchinsonian natural history. A considerable number of papers on scientific subjects were published in the British Critic, a clear indication of the curiosity evoked by science in the

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journal's editors and clergymen readers. Indeed, it can be proved that the British Critic was from its inception one of the better informed periodicals on new developments in English and French science: a point worth a separate investigation, in view of the fact that even works by well-known Jacobins were favourably reviewed, and this in a magazine which wholeheartedly embraced the conspiratorial doctrine of Barruel and Robison. Yet, the changes which affected the British social and intellectual scene during the first decades of the nineteenth century also affected the role of science in contemporary debates and polemics, thereby forcing intellectual and religious circles to revise their standpoint on science. As I shall argue in the next chapter, during the late 1810s radical agitators and leading cultural figures, such as Carlile, William Lawrence (1783-1867), Sir Thomas Charles Morgan (1783-1843) and Wade, appealed to men of science to shake off old prejudices and reject Church sectarian control of research. The concept of a free science, uncensored by religious or metaphysical preconceptions, was opposed to the trite and static culture of the Anglican universities, monopolized by the most reactionary sectors of the Anglican Church. The fear that science could become a key factor in an all-out assault against the Anglican universities and Anglican Christianity worried many clergymen. The Hackney leaders were not alone in opposing contemporary naturalists who purported to substitute a lay vision of nature for the traditional religious one. By the late 1820s the Hackney leaders increasingly sympathized with the stance adopted by men like Rose, who denounced the dangers of the excessive attention to science paid at Cambridge. The plan of showing that the English universities were capable of keeping pace with scientific advance risked backfiring. At Oxford and Cambridge, several dons were convinced that scientific subjects should be included in the curriculum, and not just reserved for public lectures, to be quoted with pride in polemical pamphlets against the Edinburgh Review. Baden Powell's interest in science was stronger than his Hackney relatives' curiosity about technology and natural rarities. He was convinced that science progressed and that scientific advance was bound to influence all aspects of social and cultural life in contemporary Britain. At the same time, he shared the preoccupation of his relatives and friends with the consequences to be expected from a confrontation between science and revealed religion. Baden Powell studied and wrote with the aim of defending the Anglican Church and of implementing at a scholarly and philosophical level the religious policies of his Hackney relatives and his Oriel teachers. It was therefore unavoidable that he should approach the question of the relationship between science and the scriptures and state the case of science in its relation with modern Christian apologetic.

Science and religion in the 1820s

In Chapter i I examined the considerable effort made by the Hackney friends to alert the clergy and the Anglican intelligentsia to the necessity for a better understanding of theological issues, and particularly for a more serious commitment to the study of Anglican theology. However, the lack of a well-defined canon of Anglican doctrine and of a coherent grouping of professional theologians was reflected in the plurality of views expressed by the contributors to the British Critic, the journal controlled by the Hackney leaders. Agreement on a broad spectrum of political questions made theological differences a matter of secondary importance. Moreover, the absence at this time of any sustained attempt to develop a systematic approach to theological studies and doctrines made even more remote the possibility of clashes on purely theological issues. In the course of this study, it will become apparent how, with the outbreak of serious political contention within the High Church party, theological differences tended to come to the forefront of the tense debates which characterized the late 1820s and the early 1830s. The lack of agreement on several points of crucial theological relevance (in particular on the character and extent of the divine inspiration of the Bible) had obvious and important effects on the solutions put forward in the British Critic regarding the relationship between science and the scriptures. A survey of reviews on scientific subjects published in the magazine during the 1810s and the early 1820s reveals that suspicions about the actual or potential danger of scientific inquiry from the religious point of view were voiced along with firm reassurances as to the intrinsic safety of natural and physical researches. James Cowles Prichard (1786-1848) opened his Researches into the Physical History of Man (1813) by declaring that the truth of the scriptures was not involved in the discussion of the question of whether mankind had been generated from a single pair or many original pairs, the parent stock of the different races of man. Prichard's views were widely shared. His work was favourably reviewed in the British Critic. However, there was some dissension over the degree to which science should be independent of the scriptures.

49

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Science and religion

Cautious as it was, the formulation of the problem by Prichard met with a severe warning from an otherwise indulgent British Critic reviewer. The anonymous commentator conceded that the ultimate goal of the naturalist was the reconciliation of Genesis with recent researches into physical anthropology. He was also far from recommending 'the circular mode of argumentation, or requiring that he [Prichard] should first take the authority of the scripture for concluding that the whole race of men descended from one common ancestor'. Yet, surreptitiously reintroducing the very circularity he had just discarded, he warned Prichard to remember that 'upon the conclusions [of his inquiries] rests the validity of our holy faith'. The reviewer implicitly argued that the results of any scientific inquiry relevant to the contents of scriptural passages were bound to be taken as proof or refutation of the veracity of revelation. Viewed in this light, scientific activities and publications should be carefully supervised by churchmen and theologians, in order to detect and counteract in advance any presumptuous declaration of the independence of science from revelation or, even worse, atheistic and materialistic infection.1 Without openly discussing the concept of plenary inspiration implicit in the above position, but actually allowing for a certain latitude of interpretation of the character and extent of Bible inspiration, the great majority of contributors to the British Critic insisted that science itself was safe: 'the fault is in the man, not in the subject'. This remark applied equally to geology and to physiology, the two disciplines at the centre of the debates on the relationship between science and the scriptures in the early nineteenth century. Essential and significant differences characterized the approach to the two subjects. No inquiry into the spectrum of positions on the science-religion debate in the 1810s and early 1820s can ignore that physiological researches were seen as far more dangerous than geological ones. Geology was rapidly increasing in popularity among the clergy, probably helped by the fact that in Anglican circles it was generally regarded as a safe science. Many Anglican clergymen and university dons had recently entered the field and with notable success. On the other hand, physiological inquiries were suspect, being stamped by open defiance of established religious and political beliefs. Indeed, Lawrence's and Sir T. C. Morgan's works contained much to substantiate the worst fears, provoking almost unanimous opposition to physiological materialism. However, even in this case, an examination of 1

J. C. Prichard, Researches into the Physical History of Man (1813), p. 3; see also second edn., 2 vols. (1826), vol. i, pp. 6-8; (Anon.), 'Prichard's Physical History of Man\ B.C., 3 (1815), 293. See also B.C., 7 (1828), 33-61, and B.C., 13 (1831), 440-59. Prichard was particularly worried by materialist developments in French science; on the plurality of monogenist and polygenist options discussed in France - then the leading country of physical anthropology and well known to Prichard, see C. Blanckaert, 'Monogenisme et polygenisme' (1981); on the theological and philosophical dimensions of Prichard's work, see W. Bynum, 'Time's Noblest Offspring' (1974).

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51

the reviews devoted to the discussion of this controversial issue reveals significant differences of emphasis.2 Thomas Rennell, the Hackney protege who in those years edited the British Critic, was the most active opponent of Lawrence's ideas. In his pamphlet, Remarks on Scepticism, Rennell maintained that physiological researches, and science at large, could easily follow a course that would fully develop their unchristian tendency. In any case, their pursuit was distracting man's mind from the contemplation of God. Underlying Rennell's severe strictures upon physiological materialism was the conviction that 'the "laws of nature", the "vital properties", the "energies of the mind", are among the mysterious phantoms which are to supersede the will and the wisdom of God'. His belief that the impious doctrines of the physiological materialists were far from being the only danger to revealed religion emerges clearly. The fervour with which 'the laws of nature' were currently investigated was to him the symptom of a subtler but no less sinister attempt to eliminate God from the natural scene.3 Rennell's position was neither isolated, nor ephemeral. It was taken up by Rose in the commencement sermon we will examine below, as well as by William Kir by and Thomas Chalmers in their Bridge water treatises. According to Kirby, even meteorological inquiries indicated the intention of excluding God's direct intervention in atmospheric phenomena. Rennell argued that he was not asking moral and natural philosophers to refer at every step of their researches to the inspired word. Yet, he too advocated the principle that in scientific inquiry 'the mind should be led upwards to discern the intimate connection and absolute dependence of all things upon God'.* Baden Powell praised Rennell's decided opposition to physiological materialism, though he himself emphasized the benefits rather than the dangers of scientific inquiry. The elucidation of natural phenomena, he argued, was bound to increase our admiration for the creator of nature. Furthermore, a truly scientific method was always characterized by a great caution, especially in inquiries touching on so complex a question as the functions of organic life or the brain-mind relationship. Briefly reviewing contemporary contributions to geological and physiological studies Baden Powell discussed the relationship between the results of current scientific research and the portion of the scriptural narrative concerned with the description of natural phenomena. His comments on the import of geological and physiological doctrines for the 2

W. Lawrence, Lectures on Physiology, Zoology and the Natural History of Man (1819); Sir T. C. Morgan, Sketches of the Philosophy of Life (1818); O. Temkin, 'Basic science, medicine, and the romantic era', Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 37 (1963), 97-129; K. D. Wells, 'Sir William Lawrence (1783-1867)', ^.//.Z?., 4 (1971), 319-61; L. S. Jacyna, 'Immanence or transcendence: theories of life and organization in Britain, 1790-1835', Isis, 74 (1983),

3

T. Rennell, Remarks on Scepticism (1819), pp. 8-9. Rennell, p. 9; W. Kirby, On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Creation of Animals and in their History, Habits and Instincts, 2 vols. (1835), vol. i, pp.

311-29. 4

xc-xciii.

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acceptance of revealed religion followed the approach adopted by several British Critic reviewers in the late 1810s and early 1820s. The reconciliation of geology with the scriptures was not seen as a major problem. For instance, a reviewer argued that geology could, and indeed had been used to undermine belief in the inspiration of the scriptures but this fault was not to be imputed to the science itself; after all, astronomy, comparative anatomy, even optics had been forced to serve infidelity in its assaults upon Christianity. In addition, Baden Powell approvingly emphasized that according to Phillips and Conybeare 'the establishment of physical truths is not the proper province of revelation', since the primary concern of the scriptures is 'the history of the divine dispensation to man'. 5 Various contributors to the British Critic during the 1810s and 1820s shared this point of view, though there were some dissenting voices. The reviewer of Prichard's work quoted above, or Rennell and Rose, would have felt strong reservations as to the true extent to which this principle could be safely carried. However, sympathizers with the approach expressed by Baden Powell made themselves heard. Severely critical of Granville Penn's treatise on Mosaic geology, a reviewer confidently argued that the scriptures ' were not meant to convey to mankind a system of philosophy': the book of Genesis could not be read as a manual of astronomy or geology. This view was echoed in a paper published by the Christian Remembrancer of 1826. The contributor called attention to the fact that the Bible did not teach 'the structure of the earth, but the way to heaven'. 6 Baden Powell had something to add. He argued that the cautious path followed by the inductive inquirer into geological phenomena could have made this science subservient to the teaching of the way towards salvation. Though irrelevant to doctrinal theology, which could find its light only from the scriptures, geology had auxiliary functions to perform in support of natural theology. Natural sciences and geology in primis, confuted the materialistic belief in the eternity of the universe and were providing the student with clear indications of a divine teleology presiding over the succession of natural events.7 Notwithstanding the avowal that revelation was not designed to teach natural science, Baden Powell conceded that a confrontation between geology and revelation was possible on two particular questions: the Noachian deluge and the antiquity of the earth. On the first issue, his position reflected the confident mood of the period: on geological grounds, the question was seen as settled 5 (Anon.), Roue's Essay on Geology ', p. 653; (Baden Powell), 'Geology of England and Wales', P- 297(Anon.), 'Penn's Mineral and Mosaical Geologies', B.C., 21 (1824), 387; (P.N.Wilton), 'Misapplication of geology to scripture', C/?., 8 (1826), 211; the identification of Wilton as the author of the review is by Dr Yule, 'The impact of science'. On Mosaic geology, see the classic study by C. C. Gillispie, Genesis and Geology (1959), M. Millhauser, 'The scriptural geologists', Osiris, 11 (1954), 65-86 and Yule, 'The impact of science'. 7 (Baden Powell), 'Geology of England and Wales', 298.

6

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53

and the historicity of Noah's flood irrefutably established. The British Critic reviewer of Buckland's Reliquiae Diluvianae triumphantly declared that if infidel surmises should be hazarded anywhere, in books or in lectures, respecting the narrative contained in our more ancient scriptures, and doubts thrown out as to the accuracy of the historian who describes the Mosaic deluge; let Mr. Buckland gird on his orthodox armour, and plant his foot on the disputed field.8 The tone of this review shows how in the early 1820s those Anglicans utilizing geology for demonstrating the relations between science and religion were confident that they were treading on safe ground. Opposition to the scientific and historical reliability of the sacred writings came from highly disreputable quarters, such as Elihu Palmer's reissues of eighteenth-century materialistic cosmogonies or the publications sponsored by Carlile. At a more serious level, though equally disqualified in the eyes of Anglican High Churchmen, Lawrence in his Lectures on Physiology of 1819 expressed qualified doubts as to the inspiration of Genesis. Last but not least Belsham, the acknowledged leader of British Unitarians in the 1810s and the 1820s delivered a lecture in which he maintained that the Mosaic account of creation could not be substantiated on scientific grounds. Belsham's critical strictures were founded on old astronomical objections. He was clearly unaware of recent geological discoveries proving the contrary of his thesis. Thus, it is not surprising that the British Critic reviewer of the Reliquiae Diluvianae saw Buckland's work as an adequate answer to recently renewed attacks against the scientific reliability of Genesis. 9 The strategy of Unitarians, physiologists and radical Paineite publishers of the school of Richard Carlile occasioned worries on theological and social grounds. However, several Anglican apologists felt that to confront opponents with geological arguments was to fight a battle already won. The consideration of this wider dimension of the debates on the relationship between geological doctrines and revelation helps in explaining the success of geological inquiries even within reactionary Anglican circles. It could be argued that it was by extolling the apologetic import of geological research that the friends of the new science obtained access to Oxford University. Even those who were still suspicious about science in general could not deny that the leading geologists of the day and of the past decades - Deodat de Dolomieu (1751-1801), JeanAndre Deluc (1727-1817), Georges Cuvier (1769-1832),Adam Sedgwick (17851873) a n d Buckland -authoritatively confirmed the substantial veracity of the scriptural accounts of geological phenomena. 8

9

'Geology of England and Wales', 298. (Anon.), 'Buckland's Reliquiae Diluvianae\ B.C., 20 (1823), 608. E. Palmer, Principles of Nature (1823); Lawrence, Lectures on Physiology, pp. 247-9, 254; T. Belsham, Reflexions upon the History of Creation in the Book of Genesis (1821), pp. 26-8; J. Garbett, The Book of Genesis and the Mosaical History of the Creation Vindicated (1821); C. C. Gillispie, Genesis and Geology (1959).

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Baden Powell referred to the geological inquiries of the naturalists mentioned above, to conclude that 'the geological argument for the credibility of the Mosaic accounts of the deluge [is] most abundantly substantiated'. The coincidence between the independent researches of modern geologists and the Mosaic narrative had significant implications for the question of biblical inspiration. Baden Powell did not expand upon the subject but expressed his firm conviction that the matter should be re-examined in a systematic way. Such an inquiry, he argued, 'would not fail to place Moses's claims to divine inspiration in a striking point of view'. 10 The second point at which a comparison between the Genesis narrative of creation and the findings of modern geology imposed itself on the attention of contemporary commentators was the question of the antiquity of the earth. On this point too Baden Powell adopted an approach widely shared by many British Critic contributors in the early 1820s. However, on this issue even the authorities already called upon to confirm the coincidence between the Noachian deluge and geology were offering only partially satisfactory indications. The British Critic reviewer of Granville Penn's treatise unguardedly compared the ideas -'reveries', he specified - o f the Mosaic geologist with Hutton's 'eternal renovations' and Cuvier's 'numerous debacles'; thereby acknowledging that such a safe authority as Cuvier concluded that the natural history of the earth could have developed for a period of time longer than the biblical chronology reckoned.11 In order to explain this discrepancy, the reviewer of Boue's work on the geology of Scotland suggested that the first verse of Genesis referred to the originally created universe, evolving for indefinite periods of time. The remaining part of the narrative referred to the final intervention of God in the six days' operations and its consequences. This exegetical proposal was put forward with the cautionary remark that 'this is, no doubt, a mere hypothesis, and which will, of course, be received or refused, according to the particular principles of biblical interpretation by which it shall be tried. Still, there is certainly no impiety in the supposition'. 12 Following an analogous approach, Phillips and Conybeare had two more hypotheses to put forward. They argued that the 'days' of creation could be safely interpreted as periods of indefinite length, or alternatively that it was possible to match the findings of geology with the literal interpretation of the Genesis narrative. The last proposal-the 'safest' of all-was put forward as one among many possible explanations.13 10 11 12 13

(Baden Powell), * Geology of England and Wales', 299. (Anon.), * Penn's Mineral and Mosaical Geologies', 392. (Anon.), 'Boue's Essay on Geology\ 655. Conybeare and Phillips, Outlines of Geology, pp. ix-xi. It is noted that both the reviewer of Boue's work and the authors of the Outlines considered the possibility of several interpretative approaches to scripture, a stand which reflected the actual state of affairs within the Anglican

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55

Baden Powell summed up the conclusions of Phillips and Conybeare on the subject of the relationship between geology and the scriptures. He too specified that the exegetical proposals suggested were hypotheses. The scriptures were designed to teach spiritual truth and not geology. Thus, all that was required was the possibility of reconciling geological findings with the general outline of the Genesis narrative of creation. No strict literal coincidence was required. Baden Powell severely commented upon the productions of the Mosaic geologists. These authors pretended to force geological findings into a word-for-word agreement with the sketchy and often impressionistic biblical account of creation. Yet, it is important to stress Baden Powell's confidence that the general compatibility of the scriptures with geology had been established and, on specific points such as the Noachian deluge, triumphantly proved. The progress of the science was bound to bring further confirmation of the coincidence between God's revelation and the results of geological inquiries. ** It is somewhat ironical that geology, the safe science of the early 1820s, was going to cause serious problems in the next decades, whereas physiology, which in the early 1820s was seen as the most dangerous attempt at giving renewed impulse to physiological and psychological materialism, abandoned unsafe ground and developed through the 1830s and the 1840s in relative obscurity. At the end of the 1810s and in the early 1820s, the physiological and especially psychological materialism preached by Lawrence, or even Daniel Pring (1789-1859), Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) and Johann Christoph Spurzheim (1776-1832), was at the centre of a violent debate in which the British Critic reviewers played an active role.15 It was the editor of the journal at the time, Rennell, who actually started the debate with a severe attack on Lawrence's work of 1816 on comparative anatomy. Lawrence's adherence to the doctrine that thought was the product of the nervous system, the result of a physiological function performed by the brain, represented a provocation which Rennell could not let pass unnoticed. Even before Lawrence published his more outspoken and politically committed Church. This situation of plurality of biblical interpretations was bound to last for a long time: cf. Ellis, Seven against Christ. Recent attempts at providing a definition of nineteenthcentury Anglican orthodoxy, or the assumption that it existed, do not appear to be warranted by a close examination of theological and natural theological debates of the time. For a recent assessment of the relationship between geology and scripture at Oxford, limited to the ideas of W. Buckland, see Rupke, The Great Chain of History (1983), pp. 205, 217. 14 (Baden Powell), 'Geology of England and Wales', p. 300. '5 Daniel Pring, A View of the Relations of the Nervous System (1816), and General Indications which relate to the Laws of the Organic Life (1819). On Gall and Spurzheim and the early, aggressively materialistic phases of phrenology in England, see R. Cooter, The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science (1984). On physiology in the early decades of the nineteenth century see Temkin, 'Basic science, medicine, and the romantic era', 97-129, Goodfield-Toulmin, 'Some aspects of British physiology', J.H.2?., 2 (1969), 283-320, and Jacyna, 'Principles of General Physiology' (1984), 47-92.

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Lectures on Physiology (1819) Rennell launched a major offensive against physiological and psychological materialism in his Remarks on Scepticism.16 Much has been written on the famous debate which followed and which forced Lawrence to resign his chair at the Royal College of Surgeons. Scientific, theological and philosophical features of this polemic have been highlighted in recent publications and studies. Various commentators have pointed out that the multiform dimensions of this dramatic debate can only be understood within the context of English social, political and intellectual life at the end of the Napoleonic wars. Concentration upon Lawrence's work, however, has often prevented a comprehensive assessment of the question and the acknowledged need for taking into account the wider intellectual dimensions of the debate has not yet been fulfilled.17 In the light of our present concern, it is important to emphasize some of the reasons why the British Critic group and the Hackney leaders became the most active parties in the debate. It is relevant that Lawrence's Lectures were seen by members of the Hackney group as an authoritative re-publication of the Priestleian materialism they politically defeated in the 1790s and the early 1800s. Rennell himself explicitly acknowledged the connection between past and present materialism, when he remarked that the ideas put forward by Lawrence were far more dangerous than anything Hartley himself dared to maintain. Rennell was painfully aware that physiological and psychological materialism as cultural forces had survived the political defeat of Priestley and his friends. A long list of Unitarian publications had been devoted to the discussion of materialism and necessitarianism, the more specifically philosophical features of Unitarian materialism. Even within Unitarian circles there was dissatisfaction with the dangerous philosophical tenets of some of the historical leaders of the movement. Yet, the dissension helped to keep the debate alive among Unitarians. It is furthermore significant that Stewart, the leading philosophical authority of the day, acknowledged the vitality of the materialist tradition by devoting one of his Philosophical Essays (1810) to refuting physiological and psychological materialism.18 16

W. Lawrence, An Introduction to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology (1816), reviewed anonymously by T. Rennell in B.C., 8 (1817), 63-73; authorship acknowledged by Rennell, Remarks on Scepticism, p. 136. W. Bynum, 'Time's noblest offspring', ch. 3. '? The work of such interesting a figure as Daniel Pring, or the discussion of physiological, anatomical and anthropological issues in medical magazines and literature deserves closer attention. The diffusion of French collective works such as the Dictionnaire des sciences medicates in medical and naturalistic circles, giving publicity to ideas High Churchmen equated to atheism, should also be considered. See below, Part IV, ch. 15. 18 (Anon.), 'Somatopsychoonologia', B.C., 22 (1824), 225-45; (Anon.), 'On Scepticism', C.R., 1 (1819), 427-48; on Unitarian debates on materialism see T. Belsham, A Letter to the Unitarian Christians in South Wales (1816), pp. vi-viii; D. Stewart, Philosophical Essays (1810, W.Hamilton edn.), 'Essay Fourth', pp. 127-45; s e e a l s o The Monthly Repository for the years 1806-20. Necessitarianism was slowly abandoned within Unitarian philosophical circles, though it survived through the work of authors like Charles Bray. On developments within

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57

Rennell, an expert in anti-Unitarian polemic, realized the wide implication of Lawrence's physiological teaching and of Morgan's defence of philosophical necessity. To him, Lawrence's 'vitalism' was only a camouflage under which dangerous tenets could be introduced. The above remarks on current Unitarian debates make it understandable that physiological materialism was not the major worry Rennell had. The assertion that the mental faculties were the result of the organization of the brain was the real point at issue, the subversive core of the cultural and philosophical proposal publicized by Lawrence. Psychological materialism was bound, in Rennell's eyes, to become the scientific support of the doctrine of philosophical necessity, that is, of the central philosophical tenet of the Unitarian school. Furthermore, it was Rennell's conviction that current intellectual debates had political connotations. It was not by chance that he referred to Gall and Spurzheim as ' the German Illuminati', an expression clearly taken from John Robison (1774-1805), the major theoretician of the participation of philosophers, scientists, and reading societies in the revolutionary events of the 1790s.19 To a generation obsessed by the belief that the social and intellectual components of the French Revolution were still active and ready to produce their explosive mixture again, the diffusion of the popular press, the birth of the working-class movement, the daily confirmation of Anglican and Tory weakness and the defiant posture of middle-class intellectuals like Lawrence and Morgan were clear indications of an approaching violent conflict. The political overtones of the writings by Lawrence and Morgan and the allies they found during the dispute, ranging from the detested Carlile to the Roman Catholic Thomas Foster (1789-1860), reinforced Rennell's belief that science had once again become the spearhead of an ideological strategy which had obscure but imaginable ends.20 Baden Powell entered the debate on the Lawrence affair with a review of John Fleming's Philosophy of Zoology. His paper was in fact an excuse for a tirade against the unsound doctrine of physiological and psychological materialism. Baden Powell himself was engaged in the anti-Unitarian controversy. It is not surprising, therefore, that he too regarded psychological materialism, the 'scientific' side of philosophical necessitarianism, as a far

19

20

British Unitarianism, with particular reference to philosophic and scientific issues, see T. L. Alborn, 'The York Unitarians' (B.A. thesis, Harvard University, 1986). T. Rennell, Animadversions on the Unitarian Translation or Improved Version of the New Testament (1811) and Remarks on Scepticism, pp. 133-5; J- B. Morrell, 'Professor Robison and Playfair, and Theophobia Gallic a\ Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 26 (1971), 4 3 63. The British Critic extensively reviewed the works of Robison, Moulnie, Barruel and other minor supporters of the conspiracy theory. See also N. U. Murray, 'The influence of the French Revolution on the Church of England and its rivals, 1789-1802' (1975), and Overton, The English Church. P. Hollis, The Popular Press (1970); E. P. T h o m p s o n , The Making of the Working Class (1963); K. R. W e b b , The British Working Class Reader (1955); M . J. T h o m i s and P. Holt, Threats of Revolution in Britain, 1780-1848 (1977).

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more important issue than physiological materialism. Indeed, after a few opening paragraphs in praise of Fleming's contention that ' the vital principle must be something more than a mere result of organization', the reviewer argued that 'the question of the connection between the organization and mind' was the 'most generally interesting part' of the whole debate. He briefly alluded to the various theories put forward in order to explain the intellectual faculties and functions in physiological terms. Then, after mentioning the theories of Gall and Spurzheim, Baden Powell concluded that All theories of this kind appear to us extremely liable to degenerate into dangerous errors. Considered in themselves, they may be harmless speculations; but they are always liable to take a particular tone and character from the minds of those who adopt them;... they may very easily convert the visionary views of some speculative physiologist into the vehicles of most fatal error, productive of the worst practical consequences, and spreading far and wide their insidious infection.21 Baden Powell's main contention was that these doctrines were scientifically and philosophically incorrect. Serious mistakes at factual and logical levels made the doctrines endorsed by Lawrence and his friends totally untenable. He seemed to offer little more than a summary of RennelFs Remarks on Scepticism, and also adopted the violent and vituperative tone of that pamphlet. Yet, it would be wrong to identify Baden Powell's reaction to psychological materialism with Rennell's. It is indeed understandable why the young reviewer expressed himself so decidedly on this issue. The Lawrence affair constituted a serious blow to those Anglicans who cherished hopes for the future of scientific inquiries in the British universities. It revived and indeed reinforced the old suspicions and hostility towards scientific pursuits. Rennell's adoption of the epithet' illuminati' to describe famous naturalists was in itself indicative of the extent and determination of his opposition to independent scientific inquiry. It is not surprising that many Anglican naturalists became the most severe critics of Lawrence. Several British Critic reviewers, however, continued to issue reassurances as to the intrinsic Christian merits of science. In the midst of the storm raised by the Lawrence affair Buckland, in works published in 1820 and 1823, did his best to present geology as a safe science. Such efforts may be seen as endeavouring to dissociate scientific pursuits from the ominous spell of pre-revolutionary materialist natural philosophy and from contemporary revivals of challenging philosophical and scientific theories. In his intellectual approach Baden Powell placed a high value upon scientific interests and advocated the extension of scientific studies at Oxford. He himself was a scientific amateur. It was crucial to his strategy to dissociate himself and the scientific interests he championed from the kind of proposals put 21

(Baden Powell), 'Fleming's Philosophy of Zoology', B.C.y 21 (1824), 150, 151, 153.

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forward by Lawrence and his allies. Thus, his opposition to physiological and psychological materialism was expressed in very incisive terms. The materialist view was that thought and the moral faculties, which Christians believed to be of spiritual origin, were the product of mere physiological organization. This conclusion, Baden Powell remarked, was bound to have dangerous consequences from a religious point of view. On the other hand, those who believed that thought was the effect of an immaterial spiritual agent, but still pretended to assign to it 'a physical space', were contravening elementary rules of consistent philosophizing. Thus, he concluded, psychological materialists of all schools 'are not content with rejecting revelation, but must also pervert philosophy; they not only offend against religion, but think to excuse it by an equally outrageous offence against all sound principles of reasoning'.22 It was clear that the approach adopted in surveying the points of contact between geology and revelation could not be applied to the critical examination of physiological and psychological materialism. As far as the latter case was concerned, there was no question of calling upon the principle 'Revelation does not teach natural sciences', since psychological materialism involved a fundamental doctrinal element concerning God's dispensation to man. The relationship between mind and body was complex, indeed mysterious. God revealed the immortality of the human spiritual principle precisely in order to provide secure guidance and a firm certainty as to the eternal destiny of man.23 Baden Powell expressed the conviction that recent allegations against scientific pursuits originated from the fact that accusers improperly confounded true science with the impious speculations of the psychological materialists. Scientific research, when conducted in accordance with a correct methodology, was bound to provide much support to the cause of revealed religion. The evidence it afforded of design and purpose in creation reinforced the credibility of the existence of a creator. Furthermore, scientific pursuits made the Christian naturalist aware of the limits of the human understanding, thereby preparing the human mind for the reception of the revealed mysteries. Baden Powell's early reflections on the relationship between physiological materialism and the revealed doctrines of the immortality of the soul, were characterized by intellectual, political, and specifically theological concerns. 22 2

' F l e m i n g ' s Philosophy of Zoo logy', 156. 3 The debate on Lawrence and on psychological materialism was particularly tense at Oxford, and within the Noetic circle; Nassau Senior supported the doctrine that the mind was the product of nervous functions, and died with man. It was this condition that made the doctrine of resurrection and immortality a crucial point of Revelation. Senior was asked by his friends to recant, and to put in writing a declaration of faith. See National Library of Wales, Senior Papers, C.493: 14 July 1827. Charles Daubeny wrote a pamphlet, A Letter to the Reverend Thomas Rennell, concerning his remarks on scepticism, from a graduate in medicine (1819) where

he vindicated freedom of research, defended the legitimacy of phrenological investigations, and denied that Rennell represented the majority of Anglican opinion. For authorship, see Daubeny Papers, Magdalen College, Oxford.

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In view of the later development of Baden Powell's ideas on the Genesisgeology debate, his early standpoint on this controversial issue deserves further mention. He accepted the methodological guideline according to which 'Revelation does not teach science'; yet, he was equally convinced that it was possible to emphasize the basic agreement between the scriptural narrative of creation and the findings of modern geology. Moreover, he hinted that the geological confirmation of the historical truth of the Noachian deluge reinforced Moses's claim to divine inspiration. Whenever such a close coincidence between geological discoveries and the relevant scriptural passages could not be established, cautious exegesis was capable of providing various conciliatory hypotheses. The theme of the limits of the human mind, fully developed in the 1826 essay on Rational Religion examined below, laid the foundation for Baden Powell's remarks on the humility and caution required for scientific research. A mature and philosophically aware science either proved the coincidence of revealed religion with sound inductive inquiries, or it declared the insufficiency and the hypothetical status of those doctrines which could not be made to serve apologetic purposes. Thus, according to young Baden Powell, it was only a preconceived moral - or immoral - choice which made infidel philosophers so self-assured in pointing out or devising scientific theories apparently contradicting the scriptures. Few of the certainties and hopes that Baden Powell shared with his British Critic colleagues in the early 1820s survived the intense theological, philosophical and political debates of the next decade.

'Rational Religion Examined'

Rational Religion Examined was the first major production by Baden Powell. It was not a work which influenced contemporary debates nor was it widely read or commented upon-none of these qualifications would apply to Baden Powell's early writings - but it undoubtedly epitomized the complex theological and philosophical scene of its day. Viewed in the right historical perspective, this text provides interesting new insights into neglected features of Oxford and English intellectual life in the 1820s. It also shows that the clear-cut division customarily made between the Hackney Phalanx and the Oxford Movement on the one hand, and the Noetic circle on the other is without factual basis. The failure to appreciate first the actual terms of agreement, and then the dynamics of the widening gap between the two approaches, has prevented a clear appreciation of important philosophical and theological issues debated in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Several of the themes Baden Powell dwelt upon in his contributions to the British Critic and the Christian Remembrancer featured prominently in Rational Religion Examined, and became essential parts of a systematic treatise on the philosophy of belief. The very systematic character of this work represents a further element of interest to the historian of philosophy and theology. It also provides the historian of science with a closer insight into the dimensions of contemporary epistemological debates. Though the book was professedly a critical analysis of the theological systems 'which discard reason', namely Unitarianism, Roman Catholicism, and various Dissenting doctrines, more than two-thirds of the treatise was in fact devoted to the refutation of the Unitarian doctrine. The authors Baden Powell quoted in support of his critical remarks were equally worried by the intellectual aggressiveness of contemporary Unitarians. It will be recalled that the editorial policy of the British Critic in the 1810s and the 1820s was a counter to the Unitarian threat. Reviews of Unitarian publications appeared frequently in High Church periodicals, and these works received a degree of attention at odds with the actual numerical strength of Unitarianism at the period. The question of the Unitarian intellectual revival was also central in the papers on theological subjects Baden Powell wrote 61

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between 1824 and 1826. In Rational Religion Examined he gave an interesting explanation of the care with which the progress of Unitarianism was monitored and vigorously denounced. Baden Powell argued that 'the number... of those professing actual Unitarianism is small, but its leading principle... is more or less adopted, with various shades of difference, by great numbers, many of whom in outward profession are supporters of established opinions and institutions'.1 Thus, Baden Powell's early theological production confirms the view that in the 1820s a considerable sector of the High Church party, ranging from the Hackney Phalanx and the Bishop of St Davids to Whately, Copleston and their school, considered Unitarianism as the major threat to Anglican doctrine. Moreover, members of the Hackney circle who distinguished themselves in fierce opposition to any form of alliance between Anglicans and Dissenters thought that in the theological fight against Unitarianism it was admissible to join hands with eminent Dissenting scholars. Rose and Baden Powell quoted with approval Smith's work against German ' rationalistic' theology. Baden Powell also remarked that he was actually engaged in unravelling the erroneous philosophical presuppositions of German theological trends already denounced by Rose and Smith. He clearly regarded German 'rationalistic' theology as an expression of the same philosophical and theological fallacies preached by Unitarians at home. The Anglican reaction against the Unitarians lacked originality and inventiveness. Few leaders of the Church who engaged in the debate examined the Unitarian doctrine on its own terms. The Unitarians were tout court assimilated with European Socinians and the English Deists of the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Since Unitarianism was regarded as a resurgence of older deistic theology, it was thought appropriate to produce new editions of works by former champions of Anglicanism who fought bravely in the eighteenth-century debate against deism. Van Mildert published an edition of Waterland's works. The Oxford University Press was producing new editions of works by Joseph Butler (1692-1752) and Whately edited the Discourse on Predestination by William King (1650-1729).2 The revival of the Lockean theme of the reasonableness of Christianity is to be understood within this context. As mentioned above, the philosophy of Dugald Stewart was widely popular in the 1810s and the 1820s amongst 1

2

J. R. Beard (ed.), Unitarianism Exhibited in its Actual Condition (1846), p. 149; (Anon.), 'Unitarians in England', British Magazine, 3 (1833), 209-10; A. D. Gilbert, Religion and Society in Industrial England (1976), pp. 4 0 - 1 ; Baden Powell, Rational Religion Examined (henceforth R.R.E.), pp. 51, 234, and 'Notes', pp. 185-256. Garbett, The Book of Genesis, pp. 4, 8; Whately (ed.), The Right Method; J.Butler, The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed (1820). It has often been stated that Whately and his friends belonged to the eighteenth-century tradition of Christian apologetic. It is important to stress that this was not the result of acquiescence in tradition, but of a conscious decision determined by their assessment of contemporary threats to the Anglican Church.

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Anglican intellectuals; the Quarterly Review and the early Noetics united in the praise of Stewart. However, the increasingly critical tone of Scottish academic culture towards the English universities caused alarm and ill feeling. Stewart's philosophy was thought to provide the intellectual scheme of reference for Scottish Whiggery as represented by the Edinburgh Review. Though several tenets of Stewart's philosophy still found upholders in England, and at Oxford in particular, the philosophy of John Locke was seen as a more appropriate and safer intellectual tool against contemporary challenges. A secondary figure such as Richard Lloyd well expressed the feeling of a High Churchman in search of a theologically reliable philosophical authority. Lloyd confessed to admiring the 'multifarious learning' displayed by Stewart; yet, 'the lights it communicates are by no means proportionate to the splendid expectations it excites; I cannot but own, that I rose from the perusal of it with an increased attachment to Locke'. Stewart demonstrated the limits of human reason, which he regarded as capable of reaching universal and necessary truths only in deductive systems such as mathematics, with no contacts with natural objects. Copleston, Whately, Lloyd, and Baden Powell were looking for a deductive demonstration of the authority of the scriptures. Their aim was a concept of reason which asserted that the human understanding had nothing to say about revelation, but that God's word had to be accepted without further or indeed any question. Many felt that Stewart indeed provided such a concept of the human understanding, but that he refused to turn his philosophical sophistication into a system of Christian apologetic. Locke's theme of the reasonableness of Christianity provided a suitable corrective to Stewart's otherwise fully adequate philosophical exercises.3 Baden Powell's attitude towards the limitations of reason in religious matters moved from the cultural premisses summarized above. He criticized what he considered to be the philosophical fallacy of Unitarian deism by stressing the reasonableness of conceiving the contents of the scriptures as above the reach of human reason. Furthermore, in characteristic Noetic and Stewartian fashion, he also argued that the debates between Deists and orthodox Anglicans often arose out of a persistent refusal on both sides to adopt rigorous rules of reasoning. The lack of clear definitions of the concepts employed was particularly deplorable in Baden Powell's eyes. The defect was to be accounted for on historical grounds, though it is significant that he laid much blame on the traditional system of English higher education. The English universities, Baden Powell argued, offered students little 3 Lloyd, Two Important Questions, p. 32. Though Prof. Aarsleff is right in pointing out the growing dissatisfaction with Locke in early nineteenth-century England, it is suggested that several Anglican divines carefully studied his works, and professed their acceptance of several features of his philosophical reflections. See W. R. Fey, *J. H. Newman, empiricist philosophy and the certainty of faith' (D.Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1977); Ellis, Seven against Christ.

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encouragement in pursuing a thorough investigation of the methodology of the curricular disciplines, divinity among others. The persistent institutional disregard for sound philosophical education was seen by Baden Powell as favouring the contemporary success of the Unitarian doctrine, as well as the numerous secessions from the Anglican Church into Dissenting bodies. He was also convinced that the time for piecemeal counterattacks was over: the strength and number of the adversaries of the Anglican doctrine required a more sophisticated strategy. It was his declared intention to provide the philosophical basis for a comprehensive system of Christian Anglican apologetic* Baden Powell considered the existence of God and the truth of revelation as non-contentious issues. This assumption was justified by the fact that all the active non-Anglican religious denominations - Dissenters, Unitarians, Roman Catholics - obviously agreed that there was a god and that the scriptures represented his word. In the 1820s atheism or extreme forms of deism were politically defeated and were living a clandestine life helped by the circulation of works by Volney, d'Holbach, Carlile and Paine. The aggressive secularism of the late 1840s and the agnosticism of the 1850s and 1860s were yet to come. At the end of the Napoleonic wars there were few signs of a large-scale attack on the credibility of revelation coming from the 4 educated' section of the British population. The theological situation of the late 1810s and early 1820s also explains why Baden Powell's contributions to Anglican journals were almost silent on the subject of natural theology. In Rational Religion Examined the theme of natural theology was briefly considered but only in order to remark that it proved an effective argument against the atheist, in so far as it provided testimonials of the existence of a supernatural designing mind. Contemporary theological debates, Baden Powell explained, did not assign a central role to natural theology. This was because the polemic with the opponents of the Church, even radical Unitarians, was not about the existence of God or revelation, but was instead concerned with the different answers given to the questions: ' Where is the precise record and depository of this revelation ? In what manner is it to be received and understood? By what principles are we to proceed in examining and interpreting its purport? In what sense are we to regard its declarations?'5 The various religious denominations claimed that their doctrine and exegesis represented the only possible interpretation of the scripture and Christian truth. Baden Powell was, however, convinced that the key point of Christian apologetic was not the sophistication of the doctrine, but the question of the applicability of reason to matters of religion. Once the methodological guidelines for theological inquiry were established, then it was possible to counteract prevailing error and to show that Anglican teaching was 'the very model of caution and discrimination'. 4 R.R.E., pp. 5, 24-7.

5 R.R.E., pp. 22, 37.

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Baden Powell followed Locke in maintaining that revelation implied the communication of truth otherwise unattainable by man. Mere common sense was sufficient to suggest that matters involving the nature of the deity and the scheme of his dispensation to man, by far exceeded the powers of human understanding. No concept of authoritative teaching or articles of faith were required for a man to be convinced of this fact. Indeed, it was sufficient briefly to consider the limits of human reason to perceive that human standards of truth were not applicable to judging the credibility of the scripture. A survey of the subjects upon which human intellectual powers were engaged revealed that the mind was capable of two kinds of knowledge. The first was described by Baden Powell as characterized by the possibility of apprehending the 'ultimate principle' of the subject under investigation. The second and by far the most common kind of knowledge available to man was defined by the impossibility of obtaining any final insight into the essential features of the object investigated. Baden Powell repeated with Stewart and Whately that knowledge in the full sense of the word was attainable only in deductive systems not dealing with matters of fact, but with pure creations of the intellect, such as mathematical and geometrical objects. In pure axiomatic reasoning, the definitions which constituted the starting point of the chain of deductions were 'ultimate principles'. Not surprisingly, Baden Powell repeated with Stewart that geometry and mathematics were the model of perfect knowledge. In these branches of science, man's inquiries attained the maximum degree of certainty and consistency. In geometrical and mathematical reasoning the definition of an object coincided with its existence: geometrical objects, for instance, were 'the creatures of our intellect'. Geometrical entities, Baden Powell argued, existed 'solely by virtue of... definition. ... Setting out from this definition, therefore, we may proceed to show that it will involve such and such properties, and that such and such assertions respecting it will involve contradictions'. However, in the majority of cases in which men were engaged in understanding reality, imprecision and fundamental difficulties prevented them from attaining conclusions comparable to geometrical truth. Even when the utmost care was taken in defining the terms and the concepts employed, the definition conveyed nothing more than a description, however accurate, of the properties immediately accessible to man's limited faculties. Baden Powell conceded that it was indeed possible to expand upon these partial definitions by following a pattern of rigorous deduction, analogous to the procedure adopted in geometrical reasoning. The conclusions reached by applying axiomatic procedures to our definitions of natural objects did not escape the daunting imprecision which characterized the premisses of the deductive train. No necessary truth could be reached when dealing with matters of fact. The inherent partiality of any such conclusions was a warning to the rational inquirer to proceed with the utmost care

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when attempting to 'ascend towards the higher principle' from the data at his disposal. Thus, it was imperative to state all the foreseeable and actual exceptions to any general conclusion which appeared to account for a number of phenomena: If we know the ulterior principle, then we may perhaps reduce those exceptions to their proper place, and regard them as in fact all parts of one great system. But if we have not this knowledge, the utmost we can do is carefully to state those exceptions, as modifying the general truth; and though we do not pretend to understand how they are to be reconciled to each other, yet still we do not think that a reason for overlooking the apparent difficulty, or endeavouring to explain it away by artful subtleties and fanciful refinements.6

Theories in particular were bound to influence the judgement of the inquirer. Indeed, the most daunting feature of scientific inquiry was the problem of keeping a careful balance between facts and theories: In philosophical inquiries it is often a matter of greater difficulty for an ill-instructed mind to admit a number of simple facts, than to apprehend an abstruse theory. In the latter there is generally something to captivate the imagination; whilst the former have a harsh, and perhaps incongruous appearance; they are multifarious and unconnected, and the apprehension does not readily collect and combine them.7

A theory 'pleases by seeming to reduce all the facts to their common first principle'. However, the well-instructed mind knew that the validity of a theory was open to an indefinite number of falsifications, equal at least to the number of facts it pretended to explain. Within the limits of the conditions of observation, the 'fact' was regarded as certain, whereas the theory was a priori uncertain. Theories were based on the assumption that the definition of the fact under observation was capable of including all its relevant properties, and that the several facts the theory was assumed to explain had relevant properties in common. It was not in the power of the inquirer to prove either of those two points.8 This expression of caution regarding the use of theories in the natural and the physical sciences could be seen as partly revising the ideas on the positive role of hypotheses and theories in science Baden Powell put forward in his early contributions to the British Critic. Furthermore, the definition of'scientific facts' was rather cavalier, since Baden Powell simply distinguished between the apprehension of a phenomenon at the level of observation, and the formulation of a definition of it, without expanding at all on so crucial an epistemological issue. 6

R.R.E., pp. 25-7, 173; Stewart, Elements, vol. ii, pp. 20343; o n necessary and contingent truth in Stewart, see Corsi, 'The heritage of Dugald Stewart'; Whately acknowledged his debt to Stewart for the definition of necessary and contingent truth, The Right Method, p. 87; Stewart's discussion of necessity and contingency constituted the basis for the discussion of the issue by authors like W. Whewell, J. F. Herschel, W. R. Lyall and John Stuart Mill. 8 7 R.R.E., p. 175. R.R.E., p. 175.

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In Rational Religion Examined Baden Powell was primarily concerned with sketching the epistemological premisses for his denunciation of Unitarian theological rationalism. His aim was to charge the Unitarians with disregarding the ' facts' of revelation in order to favour partial though somewhat attractive general theories. Thus, since he wanted to extol the epistemological status of the ' facts' of the scriptures, he avoided discussing the philosophical status of 'facts' in general. Indeed, the theological preoccupation underlying Baden Powell's analysis of human knowledge in the 1826 work made him both insist on the primacy of facts in science, and emphasize the danger of theories rather than their heuristic value.9 Baden Powell still argued that scientific progress was not characterized by mere accumulation of data. The building of theories was still seen as an essential and legitimate feature of science. Theories led to the formulation of general principles, which constituted the broad theoretical guidelines of science. The history of the physical sciences, from the time when Bacon and Newton established the correct experimental foundation of science, demonstrated the point: the more men discovered increasingly abstract principles connecting together numerous classes of phenomena, the more they were convinced of the uniformity and simplicity of the natural order. In other words, it was possible to frame broad conceptions of the course of nature as a whole. He did however stress that the epistemological status of broad theoretical principles was extremely weak, when compared with the far stronger status of the ' fact' immediately apprehended in experiment or observation. Thus, even though scientific progress allowed the inquirer to argue that natural phenomena were governed by criteria of uniformity and simplicity, it was wrong to assume this conclusion as a dogmatic guideline in future research. Baden Powell insisted that it was not the simplicity of a theory that necessarily recommended it as the correct explanation of experiments and observations. Had scientists assumed a criterion of geometrical simplicity in astronomical inquiries, they would have been led to conclude that planets were describing circular orbits, and would have opposed the correct elliptical theory of planetary motion. Baden Powell argued that failure to appreciate the provisional character of general scientific principles could in fact represent a serious obstacle towards the further development of science. The consideration of the role of general theories in science reinforced the conclusion that hypotheses or theories which rejected parts of the observations or experiments under consideration, could not be adopted without seriously impairing the whole inquiry. The only correct way of producing a theory, Baden Powell 9 The consideration of scriptural passages as 'facts' the deep nature of which was for ever unknown to man, and the consequent conclusion that theological statements could not be taken for absolutely reliable representations of revealed doctrine were at the basis of Hampden's Bampton Lectures. Hampden too was an admirer of Stewart, and wished to apply the latter's critique of science to the critique of dogmatic theology; see below, Part II, chs. 7 and 8.

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concluded, was 'to frame it upon the general expressions of all the particular facts'.10 The epistemological reflections Baden Powell embarked upon were designed to confer philosophical authority upon his approach to contemporary theological debates. In line with the reasonableness-of-Christianity tradition fully endorsed by the Noetics and by wider circles of contemporary High Churchmen, he assumed that miracles and prophecies attested the supernatural origin of the scriptures. When the divine origin of the testaments was established, it was but logical to emphasize that the content of revelation was to be approached with the utmost caution. Baden Powell stressed the difference between his brand of Christian apologetic and the one represented by the natural theology tradition. The concept of God framed through reflection upon the natural order was a false yardstick against which to judge scriptural narrative, nor could the attributes of the divine creative mind be deduced from natural phenomena.11 The existence of evil in nature and in human society was considered by Baden Powell as a particularly pertinent illustration of this point. One of the major conclusions of natural theologians was the acknowledgement of God's benevolence displayed throughout the natural and the moral world. However, according to Baden Powell, it was equally true that there was in nature much evil which was not tending towards any foreseeable good. To many minds, the presence of such unjustified or unjustifiable evil clearly contradicted the concept of God's perfect benevolence. To Baden Powell's mind, the difficulty of explaining the existence of evil only proved the philosophical weakness of human theories when applied to judging the eternal design. Furthermore, he pointed out that terms such as 'benevolence', 'wisdom', or 'power' used to describe God's attributes were derived by analogy from human behaviour. This was indeed a further major weakness of natural theologians, who assumed that the conclusions reached through the contemplation of human ethical propensities or phenomenology could be employed in describing the attributes of God.12 Baden Powell's remarks on the existence of evil in nature and on the weak epistemological status of natural theology were conclusions faithfully repeating reflections by Van Mildert, Copleston and Whately on the subject. Expanding upon Van Mildert's criticism of natural theology, Copleston added a note of philosophical sophistication to the Hackney disregard for natural theology. Copleston discussed the question of the existence of evil in nature in order R.R.E., p. 175. R.R.E., p. 134. The same astronomical example was later used by (W. Whewell), 'Modern Science - Inductive Philosophy', Q.R., 45 (1831), 401; for Stewart's ideas on the misleading concept of theoretical simplicity, see Elements, vol. ii, ch. 4, sect. iv. R.R.E.y pp. 70-4. R.R.E., pp. 76-8. for a summary of contemporary debates on the existence of evil, see Forrester, 'Development of Pusey', pp. 44-7.

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to explain that social injustice and human suffering could not be seen as disproving or contradicting the benevolence of the creator. Copleston's considerations were part of his indirect defence of Malthusian population laws. Though he disagreed with certain features of the Malthusian view of human society, Copleston accepted the basic theory of the Essay on Population. A recent authoritative commentator has argued that Copleston failed to notice that Malthus 'raised the question of overpopulation and divine forethought' and attempted to formulate his population theory in providential terms. It could be argued on the contrary that Copleston was fully aware of Malthus's justification of his own theory. Copleston's silence was designed to avoid open disagreement with an author whose views he accepted, and for the sake of making his own philosophical strategy more acceptable. According to Copleston, the Malthusian population law could not be seen as questioning God's benevolence. On the contrary, it revealed the unreliability of human reason when engaged in inquiries so far above its powers. It was as wrong to deny God's benevolence because of the existence of evil as it was to expand upon explanations which would eventually cause more confusion than conviction. Malthus's view that struggle and strife were providentially arranged to develop man's faculties, could not be endorsed by Copleston.13 As contemporaries were quick to point out, Copleston's approach revealed a weak flank, since it was undermining too great a portion of Christian ethical thought. If analogies from human behaviour were not to be applied to religious discourse, in what terms were Christians to preach God's parental care for his creatures? The brand of Christian agnosticism elaborated by Copleston was treading on very dangerous ground, since it could have been construed as describing a god too remote from human ethical concerns to be a guide for Christians in living: ' it would destroy the confidence of prayer, and the ardour of devotion'. 14 Baden Powell and the British Critic reviewer who commented on the debate did not accept this criticism. Baden Powell followed Copleston's approach with enthusiasm. He considered the establishment of methodological guidelines in theological inquiry a more important task than the preservation of popular religious views, which only too often proved liable to fanaticism and extravagance.1* Baden Powell's description of Anglican Christianity exemplified the tone and the order of priorities of Noetic thinking and contemporary High Church religious thought in general. Thus, for instance, he defined Anglican worship as 'a worship of reason, and does not derive its life and support from mere *3 Van Mildert, Historical View of Infidelity (1806), vol i, pp. 3-7; on Archbishop King's views on evil see pp. 53-64. Copleston, Enquiry into Necessity, pp. 53-64; Whately (ed.), The Right Method, pp. 105-26; Soloway, Prelates and People, p. 102. On Malthus's theology, see Soloway, and J. M. Pullen, * Malthus's theological ideas and their influence on his principle of population', History of Political Economy, 13 (1981), 39-54. x « E. W. Grinfield, Vindiciae Analogicae (1822), p. 39. '5 (Anon.), *Copleston on Predestination', B.C., 28 (1822), 3-32.

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impressions on the senses, or mere impulses on the feelings'. When confronted with the shocking conclusions of Malthusian political economy, those Christians whose faith was based on feeling were often left to doubt the benevolence of the creator or to embark upon extravagant speculations in order to explain away the difficulty. The rational Anglican Christian, on the other hand, knew that his inductive inferences concerning the attributes of God had an extremely weak epistemological status. It was the rational Christian who felt irresistibly impelled to rely upon the scriptures as the sole source of advice and guidance in religious matters.16 The question of the presence of evil in nature highlighted the general case of apparent contradictions between human concepts of God and the often obscure or contradictory passages of revelation dealing with the attributes of God. As was the case with the question of the existence of evil in nature, theologians and philosophers often attempted to be ' wiser than the word' and put forward explanatory theories which appeared to provide a satisfactory solution for the alleged contradiction. Unitarian theology, according to Baden Powell, presented dramatic instances of the consequences of approaching the scriptures with preconceived ideas about the personality and the attributes of God. He raised the specific case of the passages in the scriptures which spoke of the divinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, though other statements could be found stressing the unity of God. Baden Powell argued that those statements could not be reconciled, by whatever effort of ingenuity. He considered that there was undoubtedly a higher philosophical category capable of embracing both classes of passages in a logical harmony. Yet, this higher principle was clearly beyond man's rational capabilities and scripture itself left men in total obscurity on the subject. The solution offered by the Unitarians was incorrect from the epistemological point of view. Their insistence on the unity of God was based on a theory which provided a satisfactory account of passages of the scriptures dealing with the personality of God, at the price of disregarding other passages of a different nature. The Unitarians disregarded the simplest rules of inductive reasoning: they accepted as true a theory which failed to account for all the 'facts' of revelation. The Anglican doctrine, creeds and formularies were framed according to the collected evidence provided by the scriptures on crucial features of the revealed message. Baden Powell agreed that the Anglican articles themselves were to be thought of as 'theories' built upon the 'facts' of the scriptures, and were therefore inevitably framed 'in terms of human origin'. However, Anglican theologians took every possible step to restrict and define the meaning of the terms employed 'to express in one word the doctrine of scripture, which otherwise would require much circumlocution...; in using such terms we have 16

R.R.E., p. 101.

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a due regard not to attaching any meaning to them beyond that of their being the representatives of scriptural ideas'. 17 A distinction was maintained between Church doctrine - inevitably framed in human language - and the ' facts of revelation' - the literal formulation of a communication from God. This theme was further illustrated when the Unitarian attitude towards the nature and attributes of God was compared with the Roman Catholic approach to the subject. According to Baden Powell, Unitarians presumed to harmonize contradictory statements of the scriptures in a single incomplete theory, whereas the Roman Catholics were guilty of the opposite mistake. Roman Catholic theology was seen by Baden Powell as characterized by a tendency to overcharge the plain meaning of scripture with sophisticated philosophical hermeneutics. The Church of Rome had been 'the parent, or at least the patroness of the scholastic theology'. Van Mildert's remarks on the role of scholastic philosophy in Roman Catholic theology were quoted with approval by Baden Powell, who acknowledged his debt to the professor of divinity of his undergraduate days.18 Supported by Van Mildert's authority, Baden Powell went on to argue that doctrines and formularies of the Church of England represented a successful attempt at restoring the 'facts' of revelation, which had been perverted by centuries of confusion between the word of God and dogmatic theology. According to Baden Powell, the advancement of philosophical and scientific studies after the Reformation helped make clear the characteristic capabilities and limitations of human reason. The growing intellectual enlightenment had nothing to do with attempts at undermining belief in the scriptures. Indeed, it provided the intellectual tools for a more aggressive Christian apologetic, capable of exposing the unphilosophical, irrational presuppositions of the selfstyled advocates of rational religion. The more philosophy advanced, the more it became clear that the revealed word was incommensurable with man's intellectual powers.19 Rational Religion Examined was a work which pleased the early Noetics and the Hackney leaders. The authorities Baden Powell relied upon were representatives of both schools. Works by Rose, Van Mildert, and indeed even Jones of Nayland and H. H. Norris, were quoted together with the more recent productions by Copleston and Whately. As a concrete sign of approval, Van Mildert and Copleston exercised their influence to have Baden Powell elected Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford a few months after the publication of the book. The young author pleased Copleston and Whately by advocating the necessity of following strict rules of induction in theological inquiries. He also pleased Van Mildert by his critique of natural theology. '7 R.R.E., pp. 79-81. It is important to stress that Baden Powell was the first member of the Noetic group explicitly to theorize an inductive approach to theology grounded on the epistemology of Stewart: a fault later attributed to Hampden. 18 f R.R.E., pp. 95, 196-9. 9 R.R.E., pp. 211-12, 216-18.

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Rose expressed in print his approval of the first literary production by the youngest member of the Phalanx.20 Baden Powell expressed the hard-line approach of the Hackney leaders towards the claims of Dissenters and Roman Catholics in a language and philosophical style strongly influenced by the Oriel teaching. He clearly thought that the Noetic school had elaborated a successful philosophical approach to the theological and cultural problems which had engaged the attention of his Hackney relatives from the early 1800s. In an age characterized by growing social, economic and cultural progress, it was natural that the enemies of religion should refurbish the old arguments against the scriptures and the Anglican Church in accordance with the prevalent taste and the cultural priorities of the time. The Oriel leaders were opposing with the utmost vigour the tenets of these adversaries, in particular the Unitarians, by showing the philosophical fallacies at the basis of their arguments. At the same time, the Oriel Noetics could claim that they avoided discrediting the ideas of their opponents by resorting to political alarmism, invective, or ecclesiastical authority. It was on the ground chosen by their opponents that the Noetics were meeting them, and with appreciable results. 20

(Anon.), 'Powell's Rational Religion Examined', Quarterly Theological Review, 4 (1826), 185— 93; B.P.J., 5 Dec, 1826, 'Letter from the Provost of Oriel proposing the Sav. Professorship'; British Library, Peel Papers, Ms Add 40.390, fol. 204: letter from Van Mildert to Sir Robert Peel, 11 Dec. 1826. H. J. Rose, State of the Protestant Religion in Germany (1829 edn.), p. xxiv. See also Ellis, Seven against Christ, pp. 217-22

Baden Powell between Oriel and Hackney

The preceding chapters have drawn attention to the relevance of Baden Powell's early literary output to the understanding of Oxford and English intellectual life in the 1820s. Historians have customarily opposed traditional High Church theology and the Oxford Movement to the daring ' liberalism' of the Noetics. The term 'liberal' in this context has been grossly misused. A mistaken analogy with the meaning of the term in the later decades of the nineteenth century has biased the assessment of intellectual and religious movements in the early decades of the century. Thus Edward Sillem, the learned editor of Newman's philosophical notebooks, described Hume, Bentham and Locke as the prophets of the 'liberal world' in the eyes of British intellectuals active in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.1 The analysis of Baden Powell's early works demonstrates that the philosophy of John Locke admitted of more traditional and conservative uses in High Church circles. Many clergymen viewed the revival of the Lockean theme of the reasonableness of Christianity as a major success in the fight against Unitarianism and 'liberalism'. Sillem also described the 'Liberal Enlightenment' as a movement which 'would lead Anglicans like Whately towards... enforcing the principle that articles of faith can be passed as credible on the sole condition that they can survive the severest logical test as satisfactorily as any purely mathematical theorem'. W. R. Fey has recently argued that the 'Noetics... concluded that the truths of faith like those of mathematics should be immediately compelling to an honest mind'. 2 The early works by Copleston and Whately show that the Noetics made considerable efforts to prove that the reverse was true. Certainly they thought that the evaluation of the evidence for the credibility of scripture was to be grounded on rigorous intellectual procedures. Yet, they also insisted that the scriptural doctrines called for total and unconditional acceptance. They maintained that no criterion of human rationality could possibly have applied to judge such mysterious revealed truths as the Unity and Trinity, the Atonement, or the promise of an eternal life. Reason, far from pretending to evaluate 1 2

E. Sillem, The Philosophical Notebook of John Henry Newman, 2 vols. (1969), vol. i, p. 27. Sillem, vol. i, p. 164; Fey, 'J. H. Newman', p. 7.

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the credibility of scriptural doctrine or scrutinize the realm of faith, was capable of proving that the Christian truth had to be accepted even against reason, since there was little doubt that the revealed message was by definition above reason. During the 1820s the emphasis on this brand of Christian apologetic was not peculiar to the Oriel circle, though it could be claimed that the Noetic reformulation of the reasonableness-of-Christianity tradition was particularly sophisticated. The constant reference by the early Noetics to the economic, social and intellectual debates of the time appealed to the intelligentsia of the country. Even the Edinburgh Review was forced to admit that the 'school of speculative philosophy' at Oxford was a marked and positive novelty within the High Church cultural scene.3 The epithets 'Noetic' and 'Oriel school' are, however, misleading when applied without further qualification to Copleston's early works or to later publications by Hampden, Blanco White and Whately. A more precise definition must therefore be attempted. The first part of this study referred to Copleston, Davison and Whately as representatives of the early Noetic school. The first section of the second part will be devoted to assessing the central features of the late Noetic school, or more accurately, of Whately's school. As far as the early Noetic school is concerned, in the 1810s and the early 1820s Copleston was undoubtedly the acknowledged leader of the group. Whately's early thought was clearly influenced by Copleston. A detailed analysis of the early Noetic outlook, and of Copleston's leadership and literary performance, far exceeds the scope of the present study. However, the study of Baden Powell's early theological and philosophical standpoint substantiates the general conclusion that the so-called Oriel 'liberalism' and the Hackney conservatism had crucial common features which historians have been extremely reluctant to acknowledge. It is for this reason that it will be important to consider key themes within the Noetic outlook.4 A brief consideration of Baden Powell's university education provides further evidence of the political and intellectual alignments within High Church circles and in Oxford during the 1810s and the early 1820s. Van Mildert, as the acknowledged guide of the Hackney group in theological matters and the unquestioned champion of High Church conservatism, advised Baden Powell senior to favour Oxford rather than Cambridge for his son's education. The Cambridge intelligentsia were more concerned with mathematical proficiency than with theology. Furthermore, in Van Mildert's eyes, evangelicalism was stronger at Cambridge than at Oxford. Baden Powell was sent to Oriel, which, 3 (J. Mackintosh), * Stewart's Introduction to the Encyclopaedia', Q.R., 36 (1821), p. 254; R. J. Mackintosh, Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir }'antes Mackintosh, 2 vols. (1836), vol. i, pp. 426, 435. * Sillem, Notebook of Newman; J. Tulloch, Movements of Religious Thought in Britain during the Nineteenth Century (1885), ch. 2; Jones, 'Anglican theological thought', ch. 4.

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of all the Oxford colleges, was described in the 1810s as the successful rival of Christ Church and the new centre of influence in Oxford intellectual life. There was no reason why Copleston's writings or his efforts to restore academic standards, should have aroused suspicion. On the contrary, his essays on necessity and predestination furnished philosophical proof of a favourite point among High Church polemicists, namely that Methodism and Dissenting theology in general had marked features in common with open infidelity. Copleston distinguished himself by opposing the Edinburgh Review in defence of the elegance, dignity, and propriety of liberal studies at the English universities. He strongly denied current allegations that the only occupation of the Anglican intelligentsia was the parasitical enjoyment of privilege, and that the English universities were irreversibly out of touch with the pressing cultural demands of modern society. Copleston proved well aware of the economic and social questions of the day and was fully equipped to deal with them. He produced able disquisitions on crucial contemporary issues such as the bullion debate and Poor Law reform.* Whately's first book, the Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte (1819) shocked a few pious minds. To many High Churchmen, Whately's witty narrative of Napoleon's military successes in a language imitating the style of the scriptures was painfully evocative of the blasphemous paraphrases of the Bible and the liturgy produced by the notorious William Hone. However, the book proved extremely successful, and attracted more sympathy than the apocalyptic denunciations by clergymen calling upon the government to repress every form of political and religious dissent.6 The claim that the Oriel brand of Christian and Anglican apologetic was tolerated if not actually endorsed by the Hackney leaders is supported by further evidence than that provided by an analysis of the philosophical and theological themes discussed by Davison, Copleston, Whately, Baden Powell and Van Mildert. The major works by the early Noetics were favourably reviewed in the Quarterly Review, the British Critic, and the Christian Remembrancer. When Copleston's essay on necessity and predestination was attacked by Edward Grinfield, the British Critic reviewer - certainly a member of the Oriel community -made sarcastic comments on the provincial clergyman who dared to intervene in debates so far above his accomplishments. s (E. Copleston), A Reply to the Calumnies of the Edinburgh Review (1810) and A Letter to the Right Hon. Robert Peel on the Pernicious Effects of a Variable Standard of Value (1819); Soloway, Prelates and People; B. Hilton, Corn, Cash and Commerce (1977), pp. 44, 94, 309; P. Corsi, 'The heritage of Dugald Stewart'. 6 (R. Whately), Historic Doubts (1819), and (Anon.), C.R., 1 (1819), 302-7; on W. Hone see D.N.B. British Library, Hone Papers, and Aspland, Memoir of Robert Aspland, pp. 386-7. Copleston thought the prosecution of Hone inexpedient, see Copleston (ed.), Letters of Dudley to Llandaff, p. 190; Lord Dudley often expressed to Copleston the pre-occupation of conservative politicians and aristocrats that Oxford was unable to put a remedy to low academic and ethical standards.

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At a more concrete level, proteges of Whately and Copleston were helped by the Hackney leaders in finding temporary employment as curates at Hackney. Hampden was appointed editor of the Christian Remembrancer in 1825, a position he could not have obtained without the approval of the Hackney men. A brief comment on the complexity of the contemporary theological scene is appropriate in order to explain how the differences which did exist between Oriel and Hackney-for instance, the Oriel dons did not share the Hackney fury against the Bible Society though they themselves opposed evangelicalism — were not an obstacle to co-operation between the two groups. It is well known that the High Church party and the episcopacy of the Anglican Church of the early 1800s lacked a unified theological and philosophical outlook, a not uncommon feature in the Anglican tradition. Later events, the debates over the establishment of the Jerusalem episcopate, the Gorham judgement and Essays and Reviews in particular, proved how difficult it was to formulate the official Anglican view of crucial Christian and Church doctrines. As far as the Hackney group was concerned, it has been shown above that in the 1810s and the 1820s the Hutchinsonianism inherited from the Nayland group was modified if not progressively abandoned by Norris and Watson. The Hackney men increasingly concentrated on Church policy and parliamentary manoeuvrings. The intellectual side of their religious and cultural policy was acknowledged to be rather weak. Thus, the benevolence and indeed the approbation evinced towards the early Noetic publications is not surprising; the Oriel men proved extremely effective in exorcising the pretended intellectual superiority of the Unitarians. At a more sophisticated level, a close analysis of the Hackney and the Oriel theological productions reveals that several themes Van Mildert dwelt upon in his Boyle and Bampton lectures-the criticism of reversion to a priori philosophical categories in the interpretation of the scriptures, the condemnation of scholastic theology and philosophy, the critique of natural theology were central features in early publications by Copleston and Whately. It may be anticipated that the critique of the influence of scholastic philosophy upon Roman Catholic theology, and on theology in general, was a topic also debated within Whately's school, and one which became the guiding principle of the much abused 1832 Bampton lectures by Hampden. The elaboration of sophisticated theological and epistemological considerations to prove the necessity of a literal acceptance of the scriptures or the Noetic insistence on the incommensurability between revelation and the human reason, appealed to the basic Hutchinsonian literalism of the Hackney leaders. The eclectic marshalling of the philosophies of Stewart, Locke and Butler made the Noetic approach all the more attractive to contemporary readers. Bishop Butler's Analogy was a text the early Noetics viewed with particular favour. Direct reference to Butler's work was as prominent as quotations of texts by Stewart or Locke. The comments by Butler on the uncertainty of

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human knowledge, on the difficulty of fully understanding the revealed message as well as the natural and moral worlds, were understandably appealing to the apologetic aims of Copleston, Whately and Baden Powell. A commentator has recently argued that Newman 'found in Butler a fresh alternative to the artificial reasoning of the Noetics'. The view that the Noetics were anti-Butlerians is not new. As early as 1821 Grinfield accused Copleston of subverting the Butlerian tradition by his critique of natural theology. Grinfield argued that the discussion of the role of analogical reasoning in natural theology by Copleston was undermining a cornerstone of Christian apologetic. Analysis of Copleston's works reveals that the Provost of Oriel College was on the contrary a keen follower of Butler. Copleston had no intention of questioning in toto the possibility of applying analogies from man's intellectual and moral experience to God's operations in the natural and the moral world.7 His aim was to counteract the tendency to make human analogies the standard by which God's works had to be judged. Analogical comparison between God's and man's behaviour had a practical import and a legitimate place in Christian thought. However, according to Copleston, these analogies had no cognitive or normative value. The only source of man's knowledge of God was in the scriptures. In his reply to Grinfield's criticism (1822), the Provost of Oriel took great care to prove that his argument did not contradict the Butlerian brand of Christian apologetic: 'in pursuing the argument of my own discourses, the work of this excellent author was always present to my mind'. 8 The British Critic reviewer agreed with Copleston that his approach to theology was unmistakably Butlerian. Early works by Davison, Whately and Baden Powell repeatedly emphasized the Butlerian theme of the inherent uncertainty and limited power of human knowledge. Man's pretence at judging the difficulties and apparent contradictions of revelation was based on gross epistemological misunderstanding. The question of the actual debts of the early Noetics towards the philosophical relativism and probabilism of Butler, and indeed the general question of the influence exercised by Butler on early and mid nineteenth-century thought, certainly requires closer analysis. Yet, there is enough historical evidence to leave little doubt as to the feelings of the Noetics towards Butler. Hampden publicly claimed that he had proposed inclusion of the Analogy in the list of compulsory reading for Oxford undergraduates.9 The relationship between Hackney and Oriel is relevant to any investigation 7 R. J. Mackintosh, Memoirs, vol. ii, pp. 426-35; Fey, 'J- H. Newman', p. 23; W. de Smet, Uinfluence de Butler sur la theorie de la foi chez Newman (1963), p. 34; Grinfield, Vindiciae Analogic ae, pp. 22, 48 and Vindiciae Analogicae Part Second (1822), pp. 72-87. 8 E. Copleston, Remarks upon the Objections Made to Certain Passages in the Enquiry Concerning Necessity and Predestination (1822), pp. 72—87. 9 (Anon.), * Copleston on Predestination', 3 0 - 1 ; R. D. Hampden, Introduction to the Second Edition of the Bampton Lectures of the Year 1832 (1837), p. 37.

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of the defensive intellectual strategies produced within High Church circles in the 1810s and the 1820s. A comprehensive study of the intellectual movements briefly described here will provide much needed insight into the actual state of affairs in philosophical and theological debates at the period: analysis of the intellectual, social and political events of the first and second decades of the century has generally been an uncritical endorsement of the view later generations and historians had of their past. This practice has, however, produced serious distortions in the historical assessment of crucial features of early nineteenth-century intellectual life. Educated at the core of the Hackney Phalanx, Baden Powell came to Oxford well equipped to evaluate the approach to contemporary theological and philosophical debates elaborated by his Oriel teachers. Placed under the protection of Van Mildert, Baden Powell started his period of residence at Oriel College in January 1815. His contacts with the early Noetics were deeper than those of an ordinary undergraduate. Apart from the obvious patronage of his Hackney relatives, Baden Powell also enjoyed the friendship of William Law Pope and Henry Bishop, two fellow students closely linked with the Oriel leaders. Pope was the brother of Elizabeth, Whately's fiancee. Pope's father was living at Tunbridge Wells, the fashionable spa town where Baden Powell senior had a house and where he lived part of the year. Baden Powell's father was very active in supporting local schemes for extending church facilities. It is safe to assume that a common background of Church activities made Baden Powell's family well acquainted with the Popes. The friendship between Pope and Baden Powell was fostered by college life and periods of vacation spent at Tunbridge Wells. Henry Bishop's older brother, William, had been a fellow of Oriel before being offered the living of Upton in Buckinghamshire. William Bishop was a friend of Copleston and Whately and was particularly close to Joseph Blanco White. It is however improbable that at the time of his residence at Oriel Baden Powell enjoyed any informal association with the early Noetics. He was taught by them, but it is safe to assume that a pupil-tutor relationship characterized such contacts. The close personal friendship with some of the Noetic leaders developed only in the late 1820s. The analysis of Baden Powell's early publications shows that the young author fully endorsed the intellectual outlook of his teachers. It is also important to stress that he gave early warnings of an original elaboration of the Oriel standpoint. On theological grounds, Baden Powell proved reluctant to accept Whately's view that Church formularies and articles enjoyed derivative but secure divine origin. More important was the different emphasis Baden Powell and his teachers put on the role of science in the university curriculum. Admittedly Baden Powell's interest in scientific subjects was certainly more determined than his teachers'. Whately regarded logic as a

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subject of research far more important than mathematical or experimental science. Copleston had strong views on how the scientific disciplines taught at Oxford had to be advanced and advised Baden Powell not to spend too much time in promoting academic science. The different evaluation of the import of modern science for contemporary thought marked a major difference between the Noetics and Baden Powell. It could be argued that the Hackney training taught him to pay close attention to contemporary intellectual priorities. He agreed with his teachers that the natural sciences enjoyed a weak epistemological status. However, he was also convinced that the development of science was enhancing both the quantity and quality of human information on natural phenomena. Moreover, from the point of view of the intellectual approach best equipped to meet contemporary challenges to the Anglican religion, the relevance of science was even greater. Scientific findings were acquiring unprecedented cultural authority and were bound to influence the attitude of the masses towards religion and its evidence. A modern Christian apologetic could not ignore the consequences of the spread of scientific education and values for traditional religious beliefs. The emphasis on deductive systems as models of perfect science allowed Baden Powell further to elaborate on the Butlerian theme of the uncertainty of human knowledge. In characteristic Noetic fashion, he regarded questions of philosophical or epistemological import as relevant in approaching contemporary theological debates, though on no account was this intellectual strategy to be construed as implying that articles of faith and religious beliefs in general were to be judged according to the rules of logical consistency. On 5 February 1827 Baden Powell was elected Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford. Early in October he came to live in Oxford, and started lecturing at the Ashmolean Museum. The pressure of political and social events was already producing considerable effects on theological and political alignments. Whately's school and the traditional High Church party were increasingly at odds in their interpretation of contemporary ills and on the remedies most appropriate to cure them.

PART II

BADEN POWELL AND THE NOETIC SCHOOL

Before discussing the relevance of the late Noetic school to Baden Powell's intellectual development, it is necessary to consider whether it is legitimate to refer to a 'late Noetic school' at all. A corollary to this is the question of Whately's leadership. It could indeed be argued that Whately's essays, notwithstanding their author's claim that he was approaching his subjects systematically, were in fact occasioned by contemporary and often ephemeral debates.1 It could also be said that the works by members of the group reveal at times significant differences of emphasis and of approach. As far as the first point is concerned, it has already been made clear that Whately's approach to themes on which he touched evolved out of a sophisticated and coherent theological and philosophical culture. His contributions to a variety of topics have a common denominator in an intellectual programme that has been ignored by past and present historians. As far as the second point is concerned, it is undoubtedly true that there were differences within the Noetic group. Nevertheless, theologians, historians, and naturalists linked with Whately and his friends at Oriel were described by contemporaries as members of a well-defined political and cultural circle. Furthermore, historians have often overlooked the fact that the Noetics made a serious and determined effort to extend their influence on both academic and public opinion. In this context the publication of the London Review in the summer of 1828 should be mentioned. This editorial venture was designed to provide the late Noetics with a means of promoting their social, philosophical and theological programme. The Review was edited by Blanco White and financed by a group of London intellectuals headed by Nassau Senior and Herbert Mayo (1796-1852). The intention of the editor and proprietors was that the journal should be a forum for debating intellectual and social issues facing contemporary England. It was to be open to Anglicans of various theological and political opinions. The attempt failed, mainly because of the lack of contributors. The heightened tension within Church parties in the course of 1829 made it difficult for the 1

Tulloch, Movements of Religious Thought, p. 53.

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editor to find contributors willing to identify themselves with the catholic aims of the London Review, It is however undeniable that the journal represented a highly significant move in the intellectual and political scene of the day. The broadly conceived plan of the Review well represented the approach to contemporary issues adopted by Whately and his friends. It could be said that the guiding principle of the London Review was Whately's often repeated invitation to agree to disagree: the problems to be faced were of such magnitude that tangential flights towards the left or the right of the political and theological spectrum would only have worsened an already dangerous situation. Contributors ranging from Whately, Blanco White and John Henry Newman, to Baden Powell, Mayo and Edwin Chad wick (1800-90) represented often diverging interpretations of the intellectual, political and social condition of the country, though the editor hoped that all could put forward a constructive and non-partisan point of view.2 The detailed analysis of the events and problems mentioned above deserves a separate study. It is appropriate here to expand upon the central features of the late Noetic intellectual standpoint, in particular that of Richard Whately, in order to provide adequate background information for an understanding of Baden Powell's crucial political shifts and intellectual development during the decade 1826-36. It is also necessary to detail the succession of events which led to the breaking of the alliance between the Oriel group and other sectors of the High Church party, the Hackney Phalanx in particular. These developments provide essential insights into Baden Powell's ideas on the relationship between science and revelation, and on the role of the Anglican universities in contemporary society. 2

Numbers I and II only of the first volume of the London Review were published: see W. E. Houghton (ed.), The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, vol. ii, pp. 522-8; Oriel College, Hawkins Papers, letters from Blanco White to Hawkins, 1.92: 19 August 1828; 1.94: 27 October 1828; Lambeth Palace, Whately Papers, letters from Blanco White to Whately, 2164, fols. 214-15: 9 September 1828; fols. 216-17: 6 December 1828.

The teaching of Richard Whately

During the 1820s Whately's reputation grew steadily in Oxford and throughout Britain. His famous Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte (1819) was followed by a flow of publications which established Whately as one of the most prolific Anglican authors of the third decade of the century. Copleston increasingly devoted his time to political manoeuvring and to London social life: ill health and his ' natural indolence' made him unwilling to embark upon any major literary project. Whately was thus the only member of the early Noetic school still actively engaged in theological and philosophical debate. Furthermore, after 1825 several pupils and friends of Whately were coming back to Oxford to occupy positions of prestige and academic influence. In 1825 Whately was appointed Principal of St Alban Hall. The plan of taking over one of the small colleges in order to circumvent resistance to change and improvement was an old idea of Copleston's. As was often the case with Copleston's programmes, it was Whately who realized the plan. Whately proved to be a very able principal. The academic record of St Alban Hall underwent a dramatic change. In his work of reform Whately was helped by J. H. Newman, one of his most promising pupils.1 In 1825 Nassau Senior, a former pupil and lifelong friend of Whately, was elected first Drummond Professor of Political Economy. Senior lectured in Oxford to a disappointingly decreasing audience till 1829, the year in which Whately decided to place his reputation at the service of the newly established academic discipline. In 1826 Blanco White, a friend of Whately from the early 1810s, obtained an honorary M.A. as reward for his Evidences against Catholicism. Blanco White came to live in Oxford and was admitted to commonroom rights at Oriel. He took lodgings near Whately's house, which he visited 1

For Copleston's earliest and last recommendation to Lord Grenville on behalf of Whately's appointment to St Alban Hall, see British Library, Ms Add 59416, fol. o.or: 10 Dec. 1821 and fol. o,8r: 9 March 1825. For the Dudley-Copleston correspondence, see Copleston (ed.), Letters of the Earl of Dudley (1840), pp. 7, 235-8; Dudley was convinced that 'improvement must be forced upon them [the university]'. He was preaching to Copleston the 'adapt institutions to the state of the country' creed of Stewart. Dudley also believed that 'if Adam Smith and Gibbon had not attacked them - to say nothing of twenty less celebrated persons, and if the world had not began to cry out shame, you ever would have had the new statute!' (p. 6)

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daily. He was also on terms of close friendship with Newman, Hurrel Froude, Nassau Senior, Pusey and Hampden. 2 In 1827 Samuel Hinds (1793-1872) came into residence at Oxford. He was a close friend of Whately, and was a member of the Oriel group with West Indian connections, which included Nassau Senior and Hampden. Hinds was appointed Vice Principal of St Alban Hall, a position left vacant by Newman when the latter was appointed tutor of Oriel in 1826. In the spring of 1827 Baden Powell came to live in the house in New College Lane allocated to the Savilian Professor of Geometry. Hampden was the last to join his friends in Oxford. In 1829 he was appointed to the board of examiners on which he served for three years, the first step of a rapid, problem-ridden academic career.3 The change of leadership at Oriel from Copleston to Whately was favoured by the elevation of the Provost of Oriel to the Bishopric of Llandaff in 1827. Copleston's visits to Oxford became rare. Of the early Noetics, Arnold alone was a figure of major standing in Oxford. However, he cannot be credited with an intellectual penetration or philosophical perspicuity comparable to that of Whately, and his visits to Oxford were as rare as Copleston's. Moreover, Arnold himself was to some extent under the influence of Whately. Hawkins, who succeeded Copleston as Provost of Oriel (31 January 1828) with the support of a still compact Oriel common room, was a secondary figure in intellectual matters.4 Hawkins clearly resented Whately's superiority. The latter was unquestionably the dominant and often domineering personality of the Oriel community. Hawkins was eager to keep his distance from Whately, especially after the publication of the Letters on the Church. By an Episcopalian, a much discussed work in which Whately paid him the dubious compliment of quoting with approval his sermon on authoritative tradition. Thus, Whately found himself at the head of a group of Oriel men, many of whom had been his pupils. None of the other dons represented a threat to his influence in Oriel. Opposition to Whately did not gain momentum until Newman's full ' conversion', the events following the passing of the Catholic Reform Bill, and, of course, Whately's departure for Dublin. 5 When Baden Powell came to live in Oxford in 1827, the divergence of the 2

W. J. Copleston, Memoir of Edward Copleston (1851), p. 104; Levy, Nassau Senior (1970), pp. 52-3; Tuckwell, Pre-Tractarian Oxford. 3 Hinds, a contemporary of Hampden, was, like his friend, born in Barbados. 4 Copleston was offered the see of Llandaff and the Deanery of St Paul on 30 Nov. 1827; see W. J. Copleston, Memoir, p. 116. 5 (R. Whately), Letters on the Church. By an Episcopalian (1826), p. 67. Oriel College, Hawkins Papers, letters from Whately to Hawkins, 4.348: n.d. (1826); 4.349: 3 Dec. 1826; 2.177: 17 Aug. 1829; 2.180: 23 Nov. 1830; 2.182: 11 Oct. 1831. For an epigraphic assessment of Whately's leadership of the late Noetic school, see Overton, The English Church (1894), p. 119: 'Whately was beyond a doubt the leading spirit of that rising party which never rose, but which for a short time appeared likely to do for the Church what Earl Gray and his friends did for the State'.

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Oriel men from the traditional High Church party, and from the Hackney Phalanx in particular, was well under way. In 1826, the year in which Baden Powell set out to prove the coincidence between the Oriel intellectual standpoint and the political and religious strategy planned at Hackney, Whately published an anonymous pamphlet, the Letters on the Church. Though Whately never avowed the authorship of the essay, rumours as to the identity of the 'Episcopalian' spread immediately, and the book was readily ascribed to the Principal of St Alban Hall. The Hawkins papers and Whately's correspondence with Nassau Senior substantiate the attribution of the Letters to Whately. Furthermore, notwithstanding the assertion by John Hunt that the Letters were unlike anything Whately had already written or was to publish in later years, a careful internal analysis of the text confirms that Whately was the author of the Episcopalian pamphlet.6 The central theme underlying the Letters on the Church was that the Church had to regain independence from a state that was undergoing radical change. There were clear signs that in the near future the State could be dominated by forces hostile to the Anglican Establishment. Since the danger of reform being imposed by political and religious opponents was a real one, WThately believed it was safer to act promptly while the settlement was likely to be to the advantage of the Church. Deeply impressed by the success of the American Episcopalian Church, Whately proposed a form of disestablishment by which the Church would retain all its property and economic privileges. The Episcopalian pointed out that a planned disestablishment would allow the Church to enforce uniformity of creed and practices, without incurring the increasingly common accusation of being a tyrannical religious monopoly which enforced superficial doctrinal acquiescence upon members fearful of sacrificing social and political privileges. The theme of the distinction between the Old and the New Dispensation, already developed by Davison and fully accepted by Baden Powell, reinforced at an exegetical level the essentially political proposal put forward by Whately. The Church established by Christ was different from the Jewish church. Christianity forfeited all links with the temporal power. It was a mistake, though perhaps a historical necessity, that after a few centuries the early Church assumed a political role. According to Whately, the Church was a society of Christians who subscribed to its articles and accepted the formularies and the liturgy of their community: a society independent of the invidious coercive power or the 'protection' of the State. The Church, like any other voluntary organization, should exercise its power 6

National Library of Wales, Senior Papers, C.492: Whately to Senior, 1826. Lambeth Palace, Whately Papers, 2164, fols. 139-41: 8 Oct. 1829, Whately to Senior; Oriel College, Hawkins Papers, 4.348: (1826), Whately to Hawkins, and 4.349: 3 Dec. 1826. Hunt, Religious Thought, pp. 55-8. Internal and linguistic analysis of works by Hinds gives plausibility to the hypothesis that he might have been assisting Whately in the drafting of the Episcopalian.

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and corporate right to exclude from its community those persistently disagreeing upon doctrinal and liturgical questions. Such a procedure of excommunication would not impinge upon the civil rights of the members of the society, but would simply represent the decision of a voluntary organization to exclude a member who did not accept its rules.7 Whately conceived the Church as invested by Christ with the power of establishing rituals and directing the forms of devotion of its members. However, he denied that the Church articles or formularies enjoyed divine authority. It was thus unavoidable that the human interpreters of the scriptures should disagree among themselves: the history of theology amply illustrated the point. Yet, the acknowledgement of differences of opinion on historical and theoretical grounds was made by Whately with important limitations and essential qualifications. A Christian who believed that the doctrinal system of his Church diverged in substantial points from scripture, was free to discuss the matter with his brethren in order to forward his pious wish of restoring what he regarded to be the true meaning of revelation. On the other hand, the Church was free to exclude from its community those who persisted in maintaining doctrines not warranted by the interpretation of the revealed message provided by official Church theology. Though Whately saw the articles and formularies as divested of divine authority, he nevertheless insisted that every member of a Church was compelled either to accept them in their literal sense or to abandon the Church. Whately's so-called 'liberalism' did not acknowledge the right to a plurality of interpretations and doctrines within the same Christian body, a point later made by Baden Powell. The question of the epistemological status of doctrines and articles of faith was at the centre of late Noetic thought. The solution put forward by Whately was designed to avoid latitudinarianism and disruptive pluralistic tendencies: the authority of Church doctrine should be a matter of agreement, the test of membership of a Christian community. However, Whately's secular interpretation of the articles was designed to reinforce the doctrinal authority of the Church and not to weaken it.8 In many respects, this favourite topic of discussion within the late Noetic circle represented a logical development of observations by the early Noetics 7

8

Whately probably met Archbishop Hobart of New York; see Ker and Gornall, Letters and Diaries of Newman, vol. iv, p. 173. On the wide interest aroused by Hobart's activities, see (Anon.),'State of the Episcopalian Church in the United States of America', B.C., 17 (1822), 540-55, and 579-95. In his letter to Senior (National Library of Wales, C.492) Whately referred to his Episcopalian pamphlet as 'the address to the American episcopalians'. (Whately), Letters on the Church, pp. 32-3, 66-71, 84, 136, 150, 170-1. (Whately), Letters on the Church, pp. 61-6. Commentators who have attributed a key role to Whately in the framing of the so-called Broad Church theology, have often overlooked the fact that the Archbishop of Dublin was not prepared to tolerate plurality of doctrines within the Church, was deeply shocked by the inroads made by German theology in the 1840s and 1850s and like his friend Hampden detested Essays and Reviews: see below, Part III, ch. 14.

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and Van Mildert. During the 1810s and the early 1820s the theological spokesman of the Hackney Phalanx and the Oriel leaders advocated the principle of the literal interpretation of the scriptures, in order to avoid superimposing fallible human concepts or philosophical categories upon the revealed doctrines. The crucial difference between the early Noetics and the Hackney Phalanx on the one side and the late Noetics on the other, was disagreement as to the applicability of the critical tools originally devised to oppose Unitarians and Calvinists. Whately, and Baden Powell with him, believed that in times of growing popular literacy and of pressure from a variety of rival religious organizations it was counterproductive to resort to polemics without being prepared to submit one's own beliefs to the tests imposed upon one's adversaries. Failure to inquire into the doctrinal status of Church articles and of the authority upon which they rested, would have put very effective weapons in the hands of opponents, who could then claim that there was no reason why their interpretation of scripture was wrong and the Anglican one right. Both sets of doctrines were formulated in terms of human origin, terms which were not to be found in scripture. Both made use of terms and conceptual abstractions which were bound to say either more or less than the revealed passages of the scriptures which the articles were supposed to clarify or to expand upon. In Rational Religion Examined Baden Powell argued that the Anglican articles were the expression of a human interpretation of scripture, though he emphasized with understandable vigour that the Anglican doctrine was the result of the best possible application of a sound inductive method to scriptural exegesis. In the early 1820s Baden Powell's interpretation of the articles was acceptable to the various sectors of the High Church party. The mounting tension of the late 1820s and the early 1830s convinced many Anglican apologists that their defence of the articles undermined the argument for Church authority. The Hackney leaders and the Oriel men gathering around Newman were terrified by the prospect that the Anglican Church could fall victim to Dissenters in the reformed Parliament. They strove for a solution, a via media which would allow them to maintain the title of Protestant against the claim to infallibility by the Roman Catholic Church but at the same time would enable them to express a new and stronger emphasis on the divine authority of the Church. They argued that the rights, privileges and property of a divinely appointed institution could not be alienated in order to pacify Dissenters, nor the Irish bishoprics abolished in order to avoid a civil war in the island. The very concept of parliamentary intervention in the affairs of the Church was obviously blasphemous, since any measures taken would apply to an institution established by God. 9 9 G. J. T. Machin, Politics and the Churches (1977); G. F. A. Best, 'The constitutional revolution', Theology, 62 (1959), 226-34; E. Hughes, 'The bishops and reform', English Historical

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In 1825 Rose insisted that the only appropriate check against rationalism, social insubordination and middle-class political reformism was to emphasize the idea of the divine origin of the Church. He also asked for a restriction of the traditional Protestant right to private judgement. Rose argued that private judgement was the prerogative of the Church, not of the individual. Whately did not disagree with the substance of Rose's point. Indeed, he concurred with Rose and the more conservative Anglican faction in the view that Church doctrinal decisions were strictly binding upon the faithful. Whately was however convinced that the God-given authority to enforce uniformity of practice and doctrine did not confer divine authority on the doctrine itself: scripture alone was the source of doctrinal truth. Church doctrine simply represented the best possible interpretation of the truth and could never be truth in itself. The same kind of argument applied to the organization of the Church, the ceremonies and the liturgy. God invested the Church with authority to establish rituals, but rituals of any specific historical or geographical church could not be seen as established by God. 10 This fine theoretical difference, a trifle to the modern, secular mind, provided the basis for Whately's political speculation and practice. The kind of Church authority he advocated allowed sufficient flexibility for a considerable amount of political change and adjustment. The institution of the Church had been established by God, though the actual organizational structure of historically given churches was bound to change, and indeed did change over the centuries. No one could have denied a well-established historical fact or that changes had often been for the worse. In Britain the Reformation had made the Church an instrument of the State. The Anglican Church was still suffering from the consequences of meddling with the temporal power. Whately was fully aware of the pressure to reform the Church and of the serious shortcomings of the Anglican Establishment. This conviction did not make him a 'liberal' reformist. Indeed, the Hackney leaders themselves agreed that positive action was to be taken in order to save the Church. Whately was convinced that the Church could not be reformed externally by Parliament, but only by internal change. For this reason he insisted on the necessity of reviving Convocation, as the only means of achieving an efficient self-government. According to Whately, the correct emphasis Rose placed on the authority of the Church ended in the wrong claim that every single organizational detail of the Anglican Church, from the political Establishment down to cathedral

10

Review, 56 (1941), 459-90, for documents on the opposition to the Irish Temporalities Bill by Van Mildert and Joshua Watson. See also Trinity College, Cambridge, the WhewellRose correspondence on the fears aroused by the readiness with which the Oriel leadership accepted and indeed favoured the bill on the Irish Church. On reactions at Oxford, see J. Ker and T. Gornall, Letters and Diaries of Newman, vol. iv, pp. 23-6. Rose, State of the Protestant Religion, pp. n , 23-4, 106—7.

The teaching of Richard

Whately

91

stalls and sinecures was established by God and could on no account be reformed. The form of disestablishment he himself proposed was in Whately's eyes the only way to save and indeed reinforce the authority of the Church. Faced by the challenges of the day, Anglicans had to decide whether they were to fall back into some form of Romanism, as many were already doing at the theological level, or accept the changed political situation and react by restoring the God-given spiritual authority of the Church. The themes and differences sketched above were to develop during the late 1820s and through the 1830s. Opposition to Whately's ideas mounted only when concrete political differences emerged within the High Church party and the Oriel common room. Thus, Whately himself was surprised that reaction to the ideas put forward in his Letters on the Church was slow to come. Consideration of the sequence of events between 1826 and 1832 might provide an explanation for the belated response which Whately lamented. In 1826 Oriel had not yet taken sides on the Test and Corporation Bills, and gave united support to the annual anti-Catholic petition by the University. Blanco White's book against Roman Catholic theology pleased many at Oxford and at Hackney. White's anti-Catholic tirade proved that the Oriel men faithfully opposed the claims of the Romanists." The anonymous pamphlet on the state of the Church by Whately was regarded as an eccentric production of no particular consequence. In 1828 events took a dramatic turn. The Test and Corporation Acts were passed amid the relative indifference of the country, but evoked an infuriated reaction from the Hackney leaders and conservative High Churchmen. The split within the Tory party over the issue made it clear that the passing of a Catholic Relief Bill of some kind was a question of t i m e - o f months rather than years. The Catholic Bill of 1829 sharply and openly divided the former allies. The British Critic reviewers attacked the 'divinity of a certain school' represented by Thomas Arnold and the 'Episcopalian'. The editors and theological inspirers of the British Critic became aware that the speculative reflections of the 'Episcopalian' were providing the theoretical foundation for the political operation mounted by the Peelites in Oxford and throughout the country.12 It was from Oxford, the citadel of Anglican political orthodoxy, that the Noetics were putting forward the view that while the Anglican articles were more sophisticated than the ones upheld by Methodists, Roman Catholics and Unitarians, the actual status of the various sets of doctrinal pronouncements was equally doubtful. Clearly, since there was no theological justification 11

12

Lambeth Palace, Whately Papers, 2164, fols. 139-41: 9 Oct. 1829, Whately to Senior. Blanco White, Evidences against Catholicism (1825); the book did not please White's Whig friends and patrons: see Liverpool University Library, Blanco White Papers, I B 6: 25 May 1825, John Allen to Blanco White. G. J. T. Machin, The Catholic Question (1964); E. R. Norman (ed.), Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (1967). Gash, Mr. Secretary Peel, pp. 460-6; Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, vol. i, pp. 292, 298-300; (Anon.), 'Arnold's Sermons', B.C., 12 (1829), 265, 280-1.

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for defending the Anglican Establishment, then the growing political and economic power of Dissenters and a state of virtual civil war in Ireland made it impossible not to relinquish the political privileges of the Church. This interpretation of the Noetic approach to theology and Church politics gave many churchmen reason for concern. Where was the process of reform to stop? Was disestablishment the next item in the agenda of dissenters and radicals ? Was it not true that Whately was ready to concede it without debate and indeed was he not boldly advocating such a measure? Thousands of clergymen, who for decades had enjoyed sinecures or the comfortable peace of rural livings, were now troubled by increasing resistance to the collection of tithes, by the danger of a helium servile. Their only hope was that the might of the State guaranteed their economic and social privileges. Events proved however that the protection of the State could not be taken for granted. It is not surprising that such a theoretical disquisition as Whately's on the Church as a spiritual, non-political organization was bound to be regarded as a blasphemous expression of extreme liberalism, or, at best, as senselessly playing with a highly explosive situation.13 The Noetics did of course disagree with what they considered to be a misinterpretation of their tenets. It is however true that the wide-ranging implications and the political context of their speculations on theology or Church policy were closely scrutinized by the Noetics themselves. The theme of the political and social condition of contemporary Britain was central to Whately's works, as well as to those of Baden Powell, Senior and Arnold. Indeed, it was not far from the surface of theoretically or historically oriented essays by Hinds, Hampden and Blanco White. The radicalization of political and social affairs after 1829 made the practical consequences of theological or philosophical proposals increasingly apparent. Political and ideological considerations emerged at the forefront of intellectual debates. Though it is essential not to describe complex intellectual developments as the univocal function of historically given political or social conditions, it is equally essential fully to appreciate that the intellectual options debated at this period cannot be seen except within the context of a dramatically evolving situation. Many portrayed contemporary social and political affairs as the ruinous and unalterable course towards revolution. Even though it would be an exaggeration to describe the years between 1829 and 1832 as a period of grande peur, there were certainly enough catastrophic forecasts abroad to urge many to think carefully over the consequences of their thoughts and writings. Arnold and Baden Powell, as well as Newman, Rose and Pusey, were not scholars secluded in cloisters. Rather, they were, and regarded themselves as, 'gentlemen' of their times, who discussed and theorized upon the close relationship between 13

(Anon.), B.C., 12 (1829), 267-8, 271. 'Bellum servile1 is the expression used by Blanco White in a letter to Whately, Lambeth Palace, Whately Papers, 2164, fols. 220-1: 26 Nov. 1830, commenting on rural revolt.

The teaching of Richard Whately

93

academic education and social status, theological doctrines and political rights or economic privileges. It could be argued that the crucial difference between the early and the late Noetics, and between them and their opponents, originated from the modified political context in which the late Noetics formulated their proposals.1* Many controversial tenets upheld by Whately between 1826 and 1832 had much in common with what he wrote in earlier years or with what Copleston and Van Mildert taught between 1810 and 1825. Whately's 'liberalism' could be better defined as a sophisticated form of political opportunism of a basically conservative kind. His intellectual vigour was consciously directed to counteracting new social and intellectual ferments forcefully emerging at the surface of British society. He strongly opposed new concepts of social organization with middle- and working-class origins, and seemed indifferent to appeals asking for concrete and practical social meaning to be given to the concept of Church charity. Thus, his political economy was designed to show that inequality was a natural state of society, and indeed the only state in which it was possible to organize efficient human communities, by means of the division of labour. This became one chief' evidence of Christianity', a further proof of God's intervention in human affairs. Once God's creative act was accomplished, then the organism of civil society could develop according to the laws of its constitution and could become the subject-matter of science.15 Whately repeated with Copleston that the existence of evil in nature and in society was an unavoidable and theologically incomprehensible fact, though he increasingly allowed that a tendency towards progress and amelioration in the social and the natural scheme bespoke God's benevolence. His concern for university and popular education professedly aimed at restoring on the cultural plane the inequalities it was no longer possible to preserve at a political level by the use of physical force or legal repression. The masses, he argued, helped by industrial and urban concentration, were increasing the means of 14

Churton, Memoir of Joshua Watson, vol. i, pp. 323-4; vol. ii, p. 7; Webster, Joshua Watson, p. 23. A. De Morgan, A Budget of Paradoxes, 2 vols. (1915), vol. i, p. 187. Ker and Gornall, Letters and Diaries of Newman, vol. iii, and vol. iv. For a vivid account of the fears aroused by English and European political events of 1830, see (T. De Quincey), 'The French Revolution', B.M., 28 (1830), p. 555: 'the waters of the great abyss are again abroad: one deep is calling to another. Trepidation and panic are spreading over the thrones of Europe: the friends of real liberty are perplexed and uncertain of the course before them: no William Pitt is at hand to guide us: no great leading angel arises to dictate the destiny of Europe'. See also (A. Alison), 'On Parliamentary Reform and the French Revolution', B.M., 29 (1831), 429—46, 745-62, 919-35. On the political dimension of theological debates at Oxford, see H. C. G. Matthew, 'Edward B. Pusey', Journal of Theological Studies, 32 (1981), 101-24. *s R. Whately, Introductory Lectures on Political Economy (1831), pp. i n , 115-16, 122, 140-8, 217-20, 236; M. Berg, The Machinery Question and the Making of Political Economy (1980), pp. 293-4; Hilton, Corn, Cash and Commerce, pp. 307-10; Soloway, Prelates and People, pp. 162-4; Poynter, Society and pauperism, pp. 311, 315, 316, fails to distinguish between Thomas Whately, minister of Cookham in Berkshire, famous parish Poor Law reformer, and his brother Richard, the Professor of Political Economy at Oxford.

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reciprocal intercourse. They were reflecting upon their condition and were clearly eager to increase their capacity to understand political and cultural affairs.16 Faced with this new and dangerous situation, the higher classes of society needed to establish and make felt their intellectual superiority. They should become the leaders, patrons and proprietors of the education movement. As Whately pointed out in a vigorous and lucid sermon preached in 1830, the question as he saw it was not whether the working classes should or should not be educated but by whom and for what purpose. The danger was that middle-class radicals had assumed the leadership of the popular education movement in order to replace the higher classes at the head of the State and British society.1? In his Remarks on Scepticism Thomas Rennell singled out the lower departments of professional life - surgeons, accountants, etc. - as the strongholds of modern scepticism and social subversion. Rennell accordingly set out to charge the social and intellectual class represented by Carlile, Lawrence and Morgan with heresy, atheism, revolutionary tendency and conspiracy to subvert the State. By contrast, Whately advocated a better university education, capable of sending forth into the world gentlemen well equipped to lead the professional life. Rennell, according to Whately, was right in his analysis of the ills, but wrong in the remedy-legal and political repression. Both were already impracticable.18 Whately's effort to promote the teaching of science at Oxford, political economy included, as integral parts of the curriculum for higher degrees, was motivated by his desire to see the universities performing essential functions of ideological supervision in contemporary society. Though he remained faithful to the emphasis placed by Copleston on the liberal nature of academic pursuits, he stressed the need to include in the curriculum disciplines which would provide a 'liberal' overview of professional and scientific culture. The Anglican gentleman wishing to supervise the professional or the scientific community did not need to be acquainted with boring technical details, though it was clearly his duty to be aware of and to comment on the ' principles' of each discipline applied to professional and scientific practices. Whately moved from the defence of logical studies at Oxford to the promotion of academic political economy. A practitioner of neither discipline, he became an able apologist for both in terms he thought acceptable to his audience. He pointed out that the peculiarity of modern infidelity was the 16

17 18

For a contemporary discussion of these issues, very similar to the reflections put forward by Whately, see the series of articles by D. Robinson in the B.M. devoted to the * Condition of England', and in particular 'The Repeal of the Combination Laws', 17 (1825), 20-31, 'The Combinations', 18 (1825), 463-78, 'Brougham and the Education of the People', 18 (1825), 534-51R. Whately, The Duty of those who Disapprove the Education of the Poor (1830), p. 17. Rennell, Remarks on Scepticism, pp. 12-13.

The teaching of Richard Whately

95

intellectual sophistication of its professors. The new middle-class intelligentsia were not to be converted by declamations or appeals to tradition.19 Whately never questioned the superiority of the Anglican faith (of his own brand of it, at least) nor the need to defend the social status and the economic privileges of the Anglican clergy. He was nevertheless convinced that positive action needed to be taken in order to save the Church from the many impending dangers. Purely defensive action was in his judgement politically and theologically dangerous. It is not surprising that Baden Powell saw in the strategy developed by Whately the logical development of the policies pursued by his Hackney relatives. Unfortunately however, the Hackney leaders themselves and the dons around Newman did not share the views of Whately and Baden Powell. They came to believe that Whately and his friends were pushing the policy of positive action and timely concession to the point of giving up the Church and its theology for the sake of saving it. 'Everything was to be removed which gave offence to anybody' was said to be the political guideline of Whigs and Noetics. 20 f

9 Whately, Introductory Lectures, p. 236, and Elements of Logic (1826), pp. xx-xxi, xxviii-xxix. Ker and Gornall, Letters and Diaries of Newman, vol. iv, p. 127.

20

8

The collision

The theological doctrines of the Noetics collided with the increasing conservatism of several factions within the High Church party when the Oriel approach to theology and philosophy came to be regarded as the theoretical basis for political subversion. It is, however, interesting that while the British Critic in 1829 started a campaign against the anonymous 'Episcopalian' and launched open and veiled attacks against Whately and his friends, in Oxford itself the situation remained relatively calm. Notwithstanding the sharp division on the Peel re-election affair, evidence suggests that in the university at large and in Oriel the atmosphere was less tense than expected. Copleston was reassured by Hawkins that the split within the Oriel community left scarcely perceptible ill feeling. Whately conveyed the same impression to Sir Robert Peel. Blanco White sensed a change of attitude on the part of some of his closest friends after he had voted for Peel, but could not report any perceptible estrangement. When in 1831 Whately left for Dublin, he asked Hawkins to take care of pending business relating to St Alban Hall and suggested Newman as the second best choice. 1 Beneath the official calm, a change had indeed occurred. Newman's attitude towards his friends, or, at first, towards their ideas, underwent a revolution. The Peel affair, the confrontation with Hawkins on the reform of the tutorial system at Oriel proposed by Newman, and matters of academic policy and jealousy widened the gap between Newman, Froude and Keble and the group of the friends and disciples of Whately. It could be argued that Baden Powell directly contributed to ' opening' Newman's eyes as to the inevitable outcome of Whately's teaching. The newly elected Savilian Professor of Geometry was selected to preach the official University Sermon for Easter 1829. Baden Powell thought the reaction to his preaching on the relationship between science and revelation so significant as to deserve a telegraphic but highly revealing entry in his 1

Oriel College, Hawkins Papers Li: Hawkins to Copleston, 1 Mar. 1829; British Library, Peel Papers, 40.399, fols. 9-12: 1 Mar. 1829, Whately to Peel; Pusey House, Pusey Correspondence, B3: 21 Feb. 1829, letter of Blanco White to Pusey; Oriel College, Hawkins Papers, 2.184: 18 Dec. 1831, Whately to Hawkins.

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journal: 'Preached at St. Mary's. Newman odd'. In 1833 the sermon was revised for publication and, as will be shown, it represented the casus belli for the confrontation between Baden Powell and the British Critic. The sermon contained a solution to the religion-science debate which Newman was not ready to accept and indeed regarded as positively heretical; Baden Powell's ideas reinforced Newman's worst fears as to tendency and actual consequences of the Noetic teaching.2 A few years later it was the debate on the admission of Dissenters at Oxford and Cambridge which confirmed Newman's conviction that the political opportunism of the Noetics was leading his friends towards extreme doctrinal positions. In the eyes of the orthodox supporters of the Establishment, the radicalization of the political situation and the social unrest accompanying the parliamentary progress of the Reform Bill added a worrying new dimension to the logically meticulous approach to theology elaborated by the Noetics. As one British Critic reviewer pointed out in July 1831, 'we greatly fear that the most luminous and elaborate lecture . . . will do but little for the relief of tender consciences which are scandalized and afflicted by the exaction of tithes and fees'. Whately, the target of this sarcasm, preached against the human tendency to fall into the errors of Romanism, into a superstitious and authoritarian view of religion.3 To Whately's psychological worries, the reviewer objected that the danger was of a completely different nature. The real threat was in fact the attempt allegedly made by the Mechanics' Institutes, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and the Unitarian philosophers to suppress 'all reverence for sacred things'. Pious frauds and a moderate degree of popular superstition were better left alone: 'We are far from certain that it is, in all cases, required of us to unsettle the thoughts of ill-informed people. ' 4 The election of Whately to the see of Dublin imposed understandable curbs to the attacks upon him in the High Church press. It is noteworthy that his appointment did not provoke that manifestation of hostility which was to follow the appointment of Hampden to the incomparably less important chair of divinity at Oxford. Keble expressed to Newman the fear that Whately had been forced into a secret deal, engaging himself to reform the Irish ' temporalities', but nonetheless asked his friend to congratulate Whately on his behalf for accepting the burden of the Irish Church. Newman was then completely confident that his friend would handle the Irish situation with firmness and courage, but was soon disillusioned by Whately's approval of the Irish Temporalities Bill and his speech on behalf of the Jewish claim for political equality.5 2 B.P.J., Easter Day, April 1829. 3 (Anon.), 'Whately's Romish Errors', B.C., 19 (1831), 22, 11. « 'Whately's Romish Errors', 13, 18. s Keble College, Oxford, Keble Correspondence, A . i : 21 Sept. 1831 (?), Keble to Newman. Ker and Gornall, Letters and Diaries of Newman, vol. iv, p. 23 and passim.

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Science and religion

At Oxford, in the five years between Whately's accession to Dublin and the Hampden affair of 1836, the debate on the admission of dissenters provoked the definitive split between the late Noetics and their former allies and friends. The debate also made theological differences a matter of national policy and gave the newly created Tractarian party its first chance to rally around its banner an increasingly large sector of Church opinion. Since the 'Episcopalian' jealously preserved his anonymity, the only charge against Whately which could be understood by the public at large was to cast doubt on his views on the sabbath. In 1830, Whately republished in pamphlet form the long footnote in the Essays on St Paul of 1828 with firm apologetic additions. His views on the sabbath put him in a difficult position with respect to his academic colleagues and his Anglican brethren.6 In 1829, Whately thought it advisable to pay a visit to Norris in order personally to explain to the 'Bishop-maker' the actual strategy underlying his remarks on the sabbath. The British Critic reviewer of his Essays on the Writings of St Paul, who very likely expressed the official Hackney point of view on the subject, accepted the substance of Whately's self-defence. The reviewer acknowledged that Whately was 'an acute, vigorous and independent thinker', but found in his works ' too much artificial nicety and precision': ' we cannot discern the wisdom of perplexing him [the believer] with doubts', the reviewer concluded.7 The debate over the admission of Dissenters at Oxford and the theoretical justification of the measure allegedly or actually offered by Noetics like Hampden and Baden Powell, provided the opponents of Whately with sufficient ammunition for a determined and dramatic confrontation with his pupils. As many saw it, the question was no longer one of' perplexing men with doubts': the very foundation of Church doctrine was at stake. The theological substance of the clash was the contraposition between the lucid Noetic criticism of dogmatic theology, and the High view of Church doctrine and sacraments advocated by the High Church and the Tractarian party, and endorsed, albeit with increasing reluctance, at Hackney and Cambridge. The concrete political issue of the admission of Dissenters into the English universities made clear even to the country clergyman the far-reaching dimensions of the dispute.8 We have seen that during the 1810s and the early 1820s the Noetics insisted that the fault common to all the opponents of the Anglican Church -Unitarians and rationalists in primis-w&s the lack of a sound inductive method in theology. The methodological approach to the theology of the adversary inevitably raised 6

7

8

On the contemporary, widespread pro-sabbath action by conservative and evangelical clergymen see E. Hughes, 'Bishops and Reform', 459-90. Oriel College, Hawkins Papers, 2.177 : I3 Aug. 1829, Whately to Hawkins; (Anon.), 'Whately, on St. Paul\ B.C., 5 (1829), 389, 379. On the early worries by the Hackney men and Rose that the young Tractarians were taking too high a view of Church authority, tradition and the sacraments, see Burgon, Lives of Twelve Good Men (1888), pp. 62-146.

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the wider question of the status of all doctrinal statements. It was clearly difficult to refuse the conclusion that all articles and dogmas were inevitably expressed in terms differing from the actual wording of the scriptures. Thus historical and theoretical considerations were provided to explain the origin of the many dogmatic deviations from the revealed truth. In his History of the Rise and Early Progress of Christianity (1828), Samuel Hinds gave a historical explanation of the rise of dogmatic theology. Error spreading within the primitive church made the framing of creeds and symbols of faith a condition for survival. The obvious consequence of the rise of dogmatic theology had been the creation of a technical language. Hinds repeated Dugald Stewart's remark that the introduction of technical terms into the language of science was designed to develop an unambiguous terminology capable of faithfully representing the natural phenomena under observation. Hinds commented that the opposite was the case with theology. Technical terms derived from analogy with human feelings and behaviour or were taken from the 'jargon' of metaphysical speculation. The great majority of technical terms employed in dogmatic theology had nothing to do with scriptural 'facts' or truth. Dogmatic theologians superimposed the equivocal vocabulary of ordinary human language to interpret the chosen and inspired words of revelation. Though he never denied the doctrinal necessity and the pedagogical expediency of collecting the exegetical tenets of a church in articles and formularies, Hinds argued that it was nevertheless essential not to forget the historical and epistemological nature of all theological statements. No divine authority was attached to them. A close collaborator of the 'Episcopalian', and probably one of the few friends who discussed with Whately the contents of the Letters on the Church, Hinds maintained that the articles of a church 'constitute the marks which distinguish that church from all other Christian bodies that are so at variance with it, as to be excluded from its communion'. 9 In 1827 another member of the late Noetic group, Blanco White, submitted to Whately for comment a sermon he had written for St Mary's pulpit. White argued that creeds and theological symbols were 'tokens' of the scriptural truth, but were far from enjoying the authority of revelation. Whately's marginalia substantiate the claim that White, often described as the inspirer of the Noetic anti-dogmatic standpoint, was in fact learning from his Oriel friends. 10 Hampden, the alleged 'pupil' of Blanco White, published in 1828 a volume of parochial sermons, in which the Noetic standpoint on creeds and articles of faith was again insisted upon. In passages strongly evoking Baden Powell's 9 S. Hinds, History of the Rise and Early Progress of Christianity, 2 vols. (1828), vol. i, p. 253, and 'Appendix', vol. ii, pp. 339-41; idem, An Inquiry into the Proofs, Nature and Extent of Inspiration (1831), pp. 178-9. 10 Liverpool University Library, Blanco White Papers, iii.i: * Various Sermons preached in or around Oxford', 1826-30, N. 10.

ioo

Science and religion

defence of the Anglican doctrine in Rational Religion Examined, Hampden pointed out that the article expressing the Anglican belief in the unity and trinity of God differed substantially from the analogous article of the Roman Catholic faith. The Catholic theologians assumed that the word of the scripture was to be interpreted according to the subtle distinctions of scholastic philosophy. The Anglican theological definition of God, according to Hampden, 'simply notes and records what Scripture reveals, and it delivers no opinion whatever concerning the matters revealed and there specified... it brings together points which are scattered throughout Scripture'.11 Hampden's famous Bampton Lectures of 1832 described the historical process by which metaphysical speculations had invaded Christian theology and had thereby relegated to a secondary role the proper and only foundation of the Christian truth, the word of scripture. Whately was very pleased with the work of his friend. As he wrote to Macvey Napier (1776-1847), he did not doubt Hampden's lectures were ' a work which must sooner or later attract general attention'. Whately was indeed a good prophet, though a few years later he was less than pleased with the actual fulfilment of his prediction.12 Hampden's reluctance to quote works by his friends led contemporary commentators (and many historians with them) to accept the allegation by Hampden's enemies, that Blanco White (the ex-Catholic priest, ex-Anglican minister, converted in 1835 to Unitarianism, and allegedly on the way to Spinozan pantheism) was the inspirer of the Bampton Lectures. The political motives behind this allegation are too evident to deserve detailed comment. An analysis of works by Van Mildert, Copleston, Whately, Baden Powell and Hinds shows that the Bampton Lectures were in fact a systematic development of themes often touched upon by High Churchmen and Noetic thinkers in the 181 os and the 1820s. As Whately himself commented in a letter to Hawkins, 'he [Hampden] and I have gone over much the same ground, in opposite directions; I, conjecturally, upwards, and he, historically, downwards'.13 The eighth and final lecture of the Bampton series 'The Nature and Use of Dogmatic Theology', emphasized Hampden's intellectual allegiances. Hampden denied the right to human reason to inquire into the 'facts' of revelation, that is the words or, at times, the apparently contradictory passages 11 12

13

R. D. Hampden, Parochial Sermons (1828), pp. 27, 36. Hampden, The Scholastic Philosophy (1833). British Library, Napier Correspondence, 34.616, f. 165: 3 Oct. 1833, Whately to Napier. Oriel College, Hawkins Papers, 2.193: (answered 15 Apr. 1832), Whately to Hawkins. The thesis that Blanco White had substantially helped Hampden in writing the Bampton Lectures goes back to William Palmer's A Narrative of Events (1843), and his article on 'The Tendencies towards the subversion of faith', English Review, 10 (1848), 399-444. The allegation has been uncritically repeated several times. See for instance T. Mozley, Reminiscences (1882), vol. i, pp. 353-4; G. C. Richards, 'Oriel College and the Oxford Movement', The Nineteenth-Century Review, n. 676 (1933), p. 730; R. D. Middleton, Newman at Oxford (1950), p. 39; Sillem (ed.), The Philosophical Notebook, vol. i, p. 169. For a contrary opinion, see H. Hampden, Life and Letters (1871), pp. 28-9, and Distad, Guessing at Truth, p. 171.

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of scripture. Together with his Oriel friends and teachers, Hampden acknowledged the usefulness and indeed the necessity of humanly framed summaries or exegetical commentaries on the scriptural truth. His task, he declared, was to establish 'the importance and proper truth' of creeds and articles. 14 Hampden stressed that the Anglican creeds and articles were open to the same critical approach employed to question the reliability of the theological formularies of rival religious societies. However, Hampden maintained that the inductive theology he elaborated, and which he claimed had always been at the basis of the Anglican approach to theology, was restoring the balance between the 'facts' of revelation and the 'theories' so dear to theologians. He conceded that in science as well as in theology theories were often useful and indeed indispensable. Hampden commented that men were naturally inclined to speculation and to expressing their knowledge in systematic form. For this reason too he wanted to make clear that all conflict between humanly-framed systems of knowledge - scientific theories or theological doctrines - was only a conflict of opinion: the final light on any such dispute could only be obtained by an appeal to the 'facts' of nature or revelation.15 The Bampton lecturer was careful to point out that the analogy between scientific and theological procedures did not imply any deep similarity between the two fields of inquiry. He repeated with Whately that science was searching for new discoveries, whereas theology had to restore the ' facts' of revelation in their purity. The dominion of scientific facts was continually expanding, whereas the 'revealed facts' were once and for all entrusted to the books of the scriptures.16 Notwithstanding the marked similarity between the ideas of Hampden and the tenets put forward by his Noetic friends, there was a question of form, rather than substance, which made the Bampton Lectures different, and almost offensive in the eyes of many High Churchmen. Baden Powell, Whately, Hinds and Hampden himself in his early works developed their criticism of dogmatic theology as part of a wider plan, and always directed their criticism against the theology of Dissenters, Roman Catholics, or Unitarians. In his Bampton Lectures, Hampden dealt systematically with the question of the role and status of dogmatic theology in the Christian religion as a whole. Furthermore, the practical deductions Hampden drew or appeared to draw from his anti-dogmatic standpoint were far more daring than anything the Noetics had yet cared to propose. Hampden was the first member of the Noetic group who publicly appeared to deploy the theoretical arsenal of his school to support a controversial political 14 Hampden, The Scholastic Philosophy, pp. 353-4. '5 Hampden, The Scholastic Philosophy, pp. 370-1. The theme of man's natural inclination to theorizing was fully discussed by Stewart in the second volume of his Elements and in the polemical Ninth Lecture Whately appended to his lectures on political economy, to answer the attacks by Richard Jones and William Whewell: see P. Corsi, ' The heritage of Dugald l6 Hampden, The Scholastic Philosophy, p. 376. Stewart'.

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measure, the admission of Dissenters to university degrees. Many who in 1832 took offence at passages of Hampden's lectures but considered the work a harmless, tedious and scarcely noticed scholarly exercise were forced in the years 1834-5 to reconsider their judgement. The Noetics, and Hampden in particular, were increasingly represented as the allies of the reformed Parliament in the attempt to force changes upon the university and the Church.?7 It could be argued that the aims of the Noetics were different from those ascribed to them by their adversaries. Thus, the proposal originally put forward by Hawkins, for substituting a generic declaration of loyalty to the Church of England for the subscription to the articles, was intended as a limited peace offer to the victorious forces of political and religious dissent. Hawkins expressed his amazement at the bitter reaction his plan met with in Oxford. His proposal would exclude Dissenters as effectively as did subscription, since a conscientious Dissenter who refused to sign the articles would hardly be prepared to sign a declaration of loyalty to the Church of England. 18 In 1834 Parliament was discussing matters of university policy and rumours spread that Wellington himself was in favour of some liberalization of access to the universities. Hawkins thought it was essential to show that the university authorities were open to constructive discussion. A priori refusal to take external pressure into consideration could have endangered the future independence of the Anglican academies. Whately lucidly summed up the Noetic point of view in a letter conveying to Hawkins his opinion on the current Parliamentary debates: 'I think the same of it (the admission of Dissenters) in one respect as I did of the Roman Catholic Relief: viz: that it will be carried, and that therefore it is better to make terms early, least you have to buy one Sibyl's book at the price of three'. 19 The political opportunism of Whately and Hawkins did not appeal to High Churchmen and young dons galvanized by the prospect of defending Oxford as the last bastion of Anglican Christianity. The support that the Tractarians marshalled in the country was hardly motivated by spiritual considerations. Yet, it was equally clear that the combined forces of sincere conservative Anglican Christians and sincere lovers of clerical privilege had to be countered with more convincing arguments than the crude political realism of Whately and Hawkins. Indeed, many Anglicans were convinced that political expediency had already sold the Anglican parliamentary monopoly to dissenters and Roman Catholics and that they had in addition paid the unacceptable price of several Irish bishoprics-a 'National apostasy', Keble called the measure. 20 '7 (Anon.), 'Hampden's Bampton Lectures', B.C., 14 (1833), p. 150: Hampden's views were basically sound, but 'are pushed to an extravagant length, and thus become liable to interpretations which were probably never contemplated by the author'. 18 W. R. Ward, Victorian Oxford (1965), pp. 87-98. 19 Oriel College, Hawkins Papers, 3.204: 6 Apr. 1834, Whately to Hawkins. 20 Ker and Gornall, Letters and Diaries of Newman, vol. iv, pp. 239, 364, 374.

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Hampden entered the debate on the admission of dissenters with two pamphlets in which he deployed his criticism of dogmatic theology in support of the proposal put forward by Hawkins. The Provost of Oriel soon perceived that Hampden's theoretical justification was used against his measure and wrote a pamphlet declaring that there was no connection between the proposal of the declaration and Hampden's theology. It was however too late. As in the case of the Peel re-election affair, the Noetics failed to evaluate correctly the capacity of the entrenchment party to unite a wide spectrum of previously divided forces. Hampden's justification of the move favouring the admission of Dissenters stressed that all Christians in England sincerely professed their belief in the truth of scripture. The only divergence, though an important one, Hampden conceded, was on theological grounds. Yet, in some sense at least, those theological differences were not as crucial as they appeared. Faith in formularies and creeds was not the conditio sine qua non for salvation, but only for the membership of a church. Hampden did however specify that dissenters had no right of admission and firmly maintained that Parliament could not interfere with the university. The theological teaching of the university could in no way be modified in a latitudinarian sense in order to accommodate the Anglican doctrine to the taste of the Dissenters. Hampden refused to sign the declaration of 24 April 1834 expressing the opposition of the Oxford tutors to any form of concession to the Dissenters, but, significantly, he signed the declaration of 2 May 1834 opposing Parliamentary interference in university matters. He insisted that the question of the admission of dissenters had to be discussed within the university and the Church, not in the country or in Parliament. 21 Hampden's specifications failed to convince those who opposed the measure. Many at Oxford became convinced that the Noetics adapted their theological speculations to the political requirements of the day. Newman, Keble, Froude and their allies felt that their colleagues were falling victim to the very intellectual sophistication they successfully deployed against Unitarians and Calvinists. Pusey, who kept for years a middle course between the Noetics and Newman, was probably forced to re-examine his own beliefs on the relationship between dogmas and scripture by the debates on the admission of Dissenters. He progressively shifted the emphasis from revelation to dogma. He now maintained that however weak the epistemological status of articles and dogmas, they had to be accepted and obeyed. Epistemological weakness 21

Hampden, Observations on Religious Dissent (1834), pp. 4-8, 28-30, 33-5, 39-40. Hampden signed the declaration of 2 May 1834 drafted by the Heads of Houses and the Proctors. He did not sign the 'General Declaration of April 24', because he did not think it right 'that hostility to dissent should form a bond of union among our members': see footnote p. 40. Ward, Victorian Oxford, p. 93, refers to the passage above, but concludes that Hampden 'concurred in the tutors' declaration'. Hampden, A Postscript to Observations on Religious Dissent (1835).

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was the sign that human reason had nothing to offer to the religious mind, but doubts and confusion. 22 A dramatic confirmation of the tendency of Noetic teaching came from Blanco White's sudden conversion to Unitarianism in 1835. Pusey was deeply affected by the defection. Whately pointed out that the letter Pusey wrote to White represented a clear change in Pusey's thought. Newman pondered the implications of White's conversion to Unitarianism and expressed his deep sorrow to the 'lost' friend. The unremitting intellectual inquiry into the grounds of belief and doctrine had proved its destructive power. Keble's Christian Yeary with its pious and intellectually unimaginative poetry, touched the hearts of many. So too had the logical acuity of Whately, but with opposite and disastrous results. The approach to theology and Anglican apologetic favoured by Whately, Hampden and Baden Powell now stood more clearly than ever in dramatic contraposition to the stance of Keble and his friends. At Oxford the increasingly isolated Noetic group, deprived of the vigorous personality of Whately, was left to contend with the growing influence of Newman, undoubtedly the most acute of Whately's pupils. 23 Between 1826 and 1834 Baden Powell changed many of his ideas. He was greatly disappointed by the failure of many leading Anglican churchmen to promote the best interests of the Church and of the nation. The Anglican academies, according to Baden Powell, refused to provide the intellectual guidance much needed by contemporary society; the universities turned against the times, in the pursuit of ideas and ideals that he felt were totally out of touch with contemporary ethical and intellectual tensions. Baden Powell accepted the substance of the Noetic criticism of dogmatic theology, but also admired Arnold's ideas on matters such as Church government, the constitutional status of the universities, and the question of the inspiration of scripture. In some respects Baden Powell applied the method of theological inquiry he learned at Oriel more systematically and coherently than many of his friends and teachers. Arnold's brand of latitudinarianism and the criticism of dogmatic theology by Whately and Hampden were combined to build an intellectual system which was to develop along lines that increasingly diverged from the less pliable standpoints of his former teachers. Baden Powell's appreciation of the importance of scientific ideas emanci22

(E. B. Pusey), Questions Respectfully Addressed to the Members of Convocation (1835), pp. 5, 7 - 8 and Subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles: Questions Addressed to Convocation on the Declaration Proposed as a Substitute for Subscription. By a Bachelor of Divinity [E. B . Pusey] with answers by a Resident Member of Convocation [E. Hawkins] and brief notes upon those answers by the Bachelor of Divinity (1835). 2 3 On Blanco White's defection see Oriel College, Hawkins Papers, 1.100, 2.101, 2.103, 2 I 0 4> 3.208, 3.209. Lambeth Palace, Whately Papers, 2164, fols. 230-1, 232-3, 328-9, 240-1, 2423. Pusey House, Pusey Correspondence, B.3: 23 Apr. 1835, and 5 May 1835, letters from Blanco White to Pusey. See comments by Whately on Pusey's letters, Oriel College, Hawkins Papers, 3.214: 25 Oct. 1835, Whately to Hawkins. See also H. P. Liddon, Life ofE. B. Pusey, 4 vols. (1893-7), vol- i, P- 3J5-

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pated him from the cautious approach followed by Hawkins, Hampden and Whately on questions such as the reform of the university statutes and the admission of Dissenters. It is indeed noteworthy and revealing that Baden Powell's unconditional approval of the admission of Dissenters was closely linked to his conviction that the university curriculum needed to include elements of the scientific culture so validly advanced by eminent Dissenters and the social classes they represented. To open the university to scientific subjects became in Baden Powell's eyes synonymous with opening the gates at Oxford to the middle-class intelligentsia. Thus, the years of the confrontation between the Noetics and their former allies at Oriel and the university also witnessed many changes in Baden Powell's outlook. The debates he took part in, concerning such matters as the relationship between science and revelation or the reform of the statutes, had a lasting influence on his intellectual development. The analysis of this period of his activities emphasizes the links between his personal intellectual growth and the social, political and educational debates of the time.

Science and academic politics at Oxford: 1825-1835

In his learned and thorough investigation of Victorian university politics, W. R. Ward felicitously described the debates on the reform of the statutes as 'the burning domestic question at Oxford in the 'twenties'. Ward's detailed reconstruction of the main phases of the Oxford debate on the reform of the university curriculum makes it possible to concentrate upon Baden Powell's participation in the academic politics of the time.1 His personal library, donated to the Bodleian Library in 1972, contains important manuscript material largely unavailable to Ward. A critical evaluation of the documents, marginalia and pamphlets of this collection will contribute a significant appendix to Ward's reconstruction of Oxford academic alignments in the years 1825-35. Professor Ward stressed the relevance of the Noetic involvement in the drafting of several reform projects during this crucial decade. However, Ward's account was limited to the more immediate academic issues. He did not expand upon the general theme of Noetic political and cultural manoeuvres with relation to the reform of the university, nor did he monitor in detail the marginal and substantial differences which emerged in those years within the Noetic group itself. The strain of the Peel re-election affair and the debates on the Reform Bill which affected relations amongst the Oriel dons equally affected the circle of friends gathering around Copies ton and Whately. The parting of ways between the Noetics and the younger dons like Newman, the Wilberforces, or Froude has been described in some detail by several historians. However, the divergence of opinion on many political and educational issues which emerged within the Noetic circle, still awaits assessment. It is true that the differences which divided Hawkins from Arnold, Copleston from Hampden, or Baden Powell from Hawkins, Copleston and Whately, had less dramatic consequences than the split between Newman and Whately. Even Baden Powell's occasional expression of impatience towards what he regarded as the political timidity and shortsightedness of some of his Noetic friends produced no serious rifts in the short term. Yet the theological and 1

Ward, Victorian Oxford, p. 56.

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political conflicts of the 1830s demonstrated the limits of the reforming intents of some Noetic leaders and indicated far deeper divergences which manifested themselves in the course of the following decades. 2 The main political and theoretical developments which led to the open clash between the traditional High Church party and the Oriel school have already been described. It has also been pointed out that on the theological front the open conflict was delayed until the early 1830s, even though elements of tension had been perceptible since the Peel re-election affair and the publication of the Letters on the Church by the anonymous 'Episcopalian'. We have also seen that the national political debate on the Reform Bill had far-reaching consequences on crucial features of the Oxford intellectual and theological debates. An analysis of Baden Powell's activities as university reformer will illustrate a further consequence of the Reform Bill agitation: the defeat of the movement for educational reform at Oxford. The first reviews on scientific subjects published by Baden Powell in the British Critic voiced the author's concern for the institutional fortunes of academic science. Baden Powell advocated a substantial effort by the university to revive the tradition of Oxford science. The young reviewer touched upon many topics. He appealed to the intellectual pride of his colleagues. He exploited the eternal rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge. He embarked upon a philosophical disquisition on the speculative, liberal dimension of mathematical physics. During the late 1820s Baden Powell was almost exclusively engaged in asserting the rights of scientific subjects, particularly mathematics, in the university curriculum. Significantly, he almost completely abandoned his theological activities and ambitions between 1826 and 1834. Rational Religion Examined was the only extended theological work he published in his youth. The anonymous contributions to the Christian Remembrancer were the last comments upon any theological subject he published until the appearance in 1833 of Revelation and Science, the controversial sermon he preached at Easter 1829. This seeming lack of interest in theological issues coincided with Baden Powell's devotion to academic politics and the debate on educational reform. As already suggested, there is positive evidence that Baden Powell's standpoint on the sabbath displeased his Hackney relatives, as well as many of his Oxford colleagues. The claim that our author abandoned theological speculation because his interpretation of the Oriel approach to the sabbath met with a cool, if not hostile, reception, is confirmed by the contents of a polemical 2

On the formation of the Tractarian party, and on the widening gap between Whately and the group gathering around Newman, see the excellent D. Newsome, The Parting of Friends (1966). The highly partisan Burgon, Lives of Twelve Good Men, is still the best printed source for the Hackney attitude towards the young Oxford men; see also B. R. Marshall, 'The theology of Church and State' (1956).

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exchange of letters between Baden Powell and a correspondent to John Bull, almost ten years after the sabbath debate. In May 1836 John Bull, then actively engaged in a violent campaign of character assassination against Hampden and his few friends, reproached Baden Powell for having betrayed the trust of his Oxford teachers and Hackney relatives. The anonymous contributor to the journal alleged that Baden Powell led his friends to believe he was an orthodox defender of the Anglican doctrine and establishment, in order to gain their support in his candidature for the Savilian Chair of Geometry. In his answer addressed to the editor of John Bull, Baden Powell denied he had receded from supposedly sounder opinions, and confessed: 'I held those same heterodox views (the rejection of the Sabbath) many years ago; and ... those excellent friends ... regarding me as heterodox, consistently with their own views, felt that here was an appointment unconnected with such questions, to which they could conscientiously recommend me'. 3 This attack by John Bull and Baden Powell's defence provide indirect confirmation for the thesis that the summa of Hackney and Noetic tenets produced by Baden Powell in Rational Religion Examined was regarded as orthodox. It is somewhat surprising that the John Bull correspondent thought so in 1836, at a time when it should have been clear that the theological ideas put forward by Hampden in his Bampton Lectures closely resembled the themes which characterized Baden Powell's former 'orthodoxy'. The election to the Savilian Chair opened to Baden Powell a seemingly less controversial field of action. He was now responsible for the mathematical teaching of the university. Even at this early date, minor differences of emphasis with respect to educational policy emerged between Baden Powell and Copleston, the leader of the early Noetic school. The newly-elected professor of geometry wrote to the Provost thanking him for his support and asking advice. Copleston's answer revealed the limits of his reforming zeal. Though he had been the promoter of the early Noetic teaching, Copleston was also the first of the Noetics to recede towards safer and more conservative standpoints on Church policy and the extension of the curriculum. His advice to Baden Powell, written in 1827, contained a significant indication of a basically propagandistic view of modern academic disciplines, scientific subjects in particular. The Provost of Oriel had made a name for himself in countering the criticism of the Edinburgh reviewers by instancing the mathematical examination and the new scientific chairs at Oxford. He also reviewed Buckland's Vindiciae Geologicae, asserting the vitality and orthodoxy of academic science. However, he could not see how either new or old specialized scientific subjects could 3

'Oxoniensis', * Letter to the Editor', John Bull, 16 (8 May 1836), 149-50; Baden Powell, * Letter to the Editor', John Bull, 16 (15 May 1836), 148. The quotation is from Baden Powell, 'Letter to the Editor', p. 173.

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find a place in the undergraduate curriculum. Early specialization, he repeated, was detrimental to the harmonious development of man's intellectual faculties. 4 The examination statutes approved by Convocation in 1825 sanctioned the constitution of a separate board of mathematical examiners. In 1826 an amendment introduced an interval of three weeks between the examination for honours in classics and the one in mathematics. It should be pointed out that the two provisions were approved on grounds of expediency, rather than as a step towards raising the dignity and importance of mathematical studies. Many dons felt that provisions for a single board of examiners for both classics and mathematics imposed burdensome duties that made it difficult to find examiners to sit on it. For Copleston the measure had purely technical connotations. In any case, he was convinced that the 1825 and 1826 concessions to the mathematical examiners were to be regarded as final.5 Consistently with this view, Copleston dissuaded Baden Powell from delivering public inaugural lectures on the subject of mathematical studies and from giving gratuitous publicity to mathematical teaching at Oxford. Copleston praised the young professor's wish to promote mathematical proficiency at Oxford. Yet, he also reminded his zealous colleague that 'the credit of the University will be chiefly consulted by such philosophical essays and scientific researches as form your principal employment'. It is not difficult to perceive that Copleston cared more for the public image of the university, than for the actual state of health of scientific disciplines. The duty of the Savilian Professor of Geometry was to give elementary courses, to avoid publicity about them and to publish 'from time to time', as Copleston specified, the results of his research.6 Copleston's attitude towards mathematical studies and applied mathematics in particular had an epistemological and broadly philosophical foundation. His concept of liberal education, apart from the obvious emphasis on classics, relied more on logic than on mathematics as far as the 'philosophical' attainments were concerned. Copleston had been the promoter of logical studies at Oriel. He trained Whately to become his substitute. He convinced many Oriel and Oxford colleagues that a course of study centred upon the idea of a 'liberal education' would accord logic the first place, while relegating physical sciences to a secondary position. Arnold, the educational reformer who never provided for systematic scientific teaching at Rugby, lucidly expressed the early Noetic view: 'Logic must be beyond all comparison more valuable than the Elements of Mathematics'. The study of Euclid, for instance, was seen by Arnold as providing the student with examples of rigorous reasoning, whereas logic was teaching him 'the 4

(E. Copleston), Reply to the Calumnies of the Edinburgh Review (1810), p. 176. 5 Ward, Victorian Oxford, pp. 58-60. 6 Copleston, Memoir of Edward Copleston, pp. 114-15, 330-40. Baden Powell, The Present State and Future Prospects of Mathematical and Physical Studies (1832), pp. 30-8.

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principles of reasoning'. Baden Powell was on the contrary convinced that mathematical studies were an important part of a liberal education, since they trained the mind of a student in the contemplation of general truths.? There is however no reason to believe that Baden Powell totally disagreed with the educational views of his Oriel teachers and friends. His emphasis on the liberality of scientific studies did not prevent him from following Copieston's advice. He refrained from giving publicity to his courses in print. Yet his personal views on the role of mathematical studies prevented him from restricting the interpretation of his academic duties to the limits outlined by his Provost. Between 1827 and the late 1830s, Baden Powell published a series of textbooks designed for the use of students seeking mathematical honours. He promoted the practice of printing the questions of the mathematical examiners, an initiative that revealed his admiration for his Cambridge colleagues, who were already doing so as a means of raising the standards of their students. Baden Powell also became the most determined and active reforming member of the board of mathematical examiners. As the drafts of memoranda, letters and speeches preserved in the Baden Powell collection show, the Savilian Professor was pursuing a carefully planned strategy.8 His proposals aimed at achieving the complete independence of the mathematical examiners and examinations from their classical counterparts. Once a complete separation between the two had been achieved, then the mathematical examiners would be free to make the best possible use of their discretionary powers. They could impose higher standards for the honours examination in mathematics by introducing criteria of proficiency and competition. In June 1828, only a year after his election, Baden Powell wrote the draft of a memorandum addressed to the Hebdomadal Board, which was signed by all the mathematical examiners. He asked that the day for the examination in mathematics should be fixed independently, to avoid the impression that the mathematical examination was simply an appendix to the classical. In December 1828 the mathematical examiners felt they could ask even more. They proposed that a permanent location for the mathematical examination should be established. They insisted that the three weeks' interval between the two examinations was deterring students from seeking honours in mathematics, and proposed that the examination in their subject should be held one or two terms after the classical examination.9 7

(T. Arnold), Address to the Members of Convocation (1824), pp. 2 - 3 ; for authorship, see copy in Bodleian Library, G.A. Oxon C. 40 (23). See also T. W. Bamford, Thomas Arnold (i960),

p. 117. 8

B.P.J., May 1828, 'Math. Examinations - the questions printed for the first time at my suggestion'. For the main body of Baden Powell's manuscripts on the examination statutes, and important marginalia commenting on contemporary debates on university reform, see Bodleian Library, Baden Powell 31 and 32. 9 Bodleian Library, Baden Powell 31 (7), draft of a memorandum to the Vice-Chancellor, dated

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The most important clause was the proposal that the order of classification of students who obtained honours in mathematics should be different from the order followed in the classical examination. This apparently obscure concluding demand was in fact designed to provide the necessary discretionary power to introduce a listing following the order of merit within each class, as was the practice at Cambridge. Baden Powell was convinced that the success of mathematical studies at Cambridge was due to the competition amongst candidates and to the academic honours and Church preferments accorded to those who earned the top positions in the merit list. The requests of the mathematical examiners were moderate and avoided all declaration of principle. They were keen to convey the impression that the success of mathematical studies at Oxford could be achieved through mere technical adjustments of the examination statutes. Baden Powell and his colleagues were obviously persuaded that much could be gained by avoiding all explicit reference to projects of reform. This cautious attitude was shared by intellectuals favouring a policy of sound but moderate reform. In his interesting account of English universities Charles Lyell expressed his conviction that 'our universities are called upon to make no daring inroads upon their ancient constitution': 'no extensive or violent changes are required, in order to accommodate, in a very short time, the institutions of Oxford and Cambridge to the wants and the spirit of the present age'. Lyell praised the separation of the mathematical examination from the classical one achieved at Oxford in 1826 and advocated analogous steps for the natural sciences.10 In his paper on modern mathematical inquiries which he contributed to the London Review Baden Powell wrote optimistically on the prospects of mathematical studies in the English universities. Cambridge, he conceded, had undoubtedly taken the lead. The printed mathematical questions revealed the high level of proficiency required to earn a place in the honours list at Cambridge. Oxford too was on the move: 'The number of mathematical aspirants in that distinguished seat of learning will continue . . . progressively to advance'.11 In the polemical lecture he printed in 1832, Baden Powell maintained the opposite thesis that the number of students achieving mathematical honours actually decreased over the years. This conclusion obviously contradicted the 1829 statement and was reached by stressing the decreasing ratio between the number of students taking mathematical honours and the total number of students completing their studies in the same year. The statistical manipulation of the data reveals a deep change in Baden Powell's assessment of the situation.

10 11

9 June 1828, signed by Baden Powell, Robert Walker, and Augustus P. Saunders, and Baden Powell 31 (8), draft of a memorandum to the Vice-Chancellor, dated 6 Dec. 1828, signed by 'The Examiners'. (C. Lyell), 'State of the Universities', Q.R., 36 (1827), 264, 257. (Baden Powell), 'Elementary Mathematical Treatises', London Review, 1 (1829), 481.

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It is essential to account for the transition from the optimism of 1829 to the pessimism of 1832 and for the complete change his tactics underwent during the same years.12 In 1829 Baden Powell's confidence was certainly justified. The years 1825 to 1829 represented the peak of the Noetic influence at Oxford. In March 1829 the Hebdomadal Board instituted a committee to consider the shortcomings of the examination statutes, and the various proposals of improvement put forward. The Board felt that the debates of the past years were causing ungentlemanly division within the academic body. In order to avoid further and bitter splits in Convocation, and the renewal of the 1824-6 battle of pamphlets, memoranda and declarations, the committee was to report to the Board on the best way to reconcile the projects of reform currently discussed by the different factions within the university. The Noetics exercised a significant influence on the committee.^ The committee suggested, among other measures, that mathematics should be offered as an option, replacing logic. The move, inspired by Whately, was certainly seen by Baden Powell as a relaxation of the intransigent defence of logic by the Noetics. As Whately authoritatively pointed out in the preface to his popular textbook on logic, the compulsory study of the discipline produced little positive results. Compulsion made logical propositions, requiring the full exertion of the reasoning powers, the object of mechanical repetition. The mathematical examiners too were consulted by the committee. They repeated the requests formulated in the earlier memorandum, though they compromised on the merit list: a mark of distinction in the alphabetical arrangement represented a sufficient distinction for the particularly deserving candidate.14 The deterioration of the political and the social situation of the country was already affecting the prospects of reform at Oxford. W. R. Ward has ably described the explosion of dissatisfaction with the 'old Oriel heresy that the Schools were a test of intellectual excellence'. The proposals put forward by the mathematical examiners, by Baden Powell in particular, were clearly designed to increase the competitiveness of the examination system. Thus, this group of reformers and Baden Powell were singled out for special censure by the faction opposed to all change.15 12

Baden Powell, The Present State and Future Prospects, pp. 38-9. Ward, Victorian Oxford, p. 58. See Bodleian Library, Oxford University Archives, Hebdomadal Board Minutes, 1823-33, fol. 101: 23 March 1829, for the establishment of the committee. The Dean of Christ Church, the Principal of Brasenose, the Warden of New College, the Provost of Oriel, the President of St John's and the Principal of St Alban Hall were selected to serve on the committee. x * To the Board of Heads of Houses and Proctors. The Report of the Committee Appointed by the Resolution Dated March 23, i82g, printed copy, Bodleian Library, G.A. Oxon b 21, p. 3. Whately, Elements of Logic, pp. xiii-xiv. 'Examination Statutes. Suggestions', Bodleian Library, Ms. Top. Oxon d 15, fols. 36-9, 41-7. See draft of the suggestions by the mathematical examiners in Bodleian Library, Baden Powell 31 (10). 15 Ward, Victorian Oxford, p. 59. 13

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The author of the Address to the Members of the Lower Division of Convocation - a pamphlet attributed to Baden Powell, to the latter's amazementspoke of the mathematical school as an anomaly to be readily corrected. A separation of the mathematical and classical schools implied an unacceptable partition of learning. Those who dared to request a separate honour list for the mathematical examination, the author argued, clearly failed to understand that the institution of the board of mathematical examiners was no more than tolerated by the majority of the university. As a matter of fact, in recent years the division had become intolerable: 'Some', the author complained, 'have advocated the narrow, illiberal, and ungentlemanlike idea of a classification in order of merit', 'a monstrous notion' indeed.16 The Oriel common room itself was divided on the reform of the examination system. On 11 November 1830 Robert Wilberforce published a pamphlet in which he advocated the abolition of a separate examination in mathematics, a practice which he thought gave undue importance to the subject. Wilberforce attempted a theoretical justification of his position. He compared modern with ancient mathematics, particularly geometry. Modern mathematics, he argued, was characterized by the mechanical repetition of a few simple formulae, which hardly favoured the full exertion of the reasoning faculties. Proficiency in the discipline required a kind of' dexterity exactly like that of the banker's clerk in arithmetic, or a sailor's in astronomy'. Thus, ancient mathematics only and the model reasoning procedures invented by Euclid were worthy of inclusion in a liberal education. Wilberforce pointed out that ancient geometry was a branch of litterae humaniores. As such, proficiency in Euclid's geometry should be assessed by the examiners of the classical board.17 The concentrated attack on the proposals put forward by the mathematical examiners accelerated as the scientific culture became identified with the reformist ideologies of the middle classes and the Dissenters. The deterioration of the political situation was also opening serious breaches in the ranks of the reforming party. Augustus Page Saunders, who in 1828 signed the memorandum drafted by Baden Powell, published in 1830, a few days before Wilberforce's, a conciliatory pamphlet. Saunders conceded to the adversaries of reform that the mathematical examination should not be separated from the classical one, 16

(Anon.), Address to the Members of the Lower House of Convocation (1830), pp. 12, 9-11. The mounting tide of opposition to university reform deeply affected the committee appointed in 1829. The 'Suggestions' to the committee (see note 14 above) contain several expressions of approval for the proposal by the mathematical examiners to introduce an order of merit within each class, the only contrary voice being the one of the Dean of Ch. Ch., who felt 'at loss to know how positive degrees of merit can in practice be fairly assessed' (fol. 2). Yet, when the committee finally submitted its report to the Hebdomadal Board on 9 December 1829, it advised that the examinations for honours in classics and mathematics should be taken on the same day, and pointed out 'strong objections on moral grounds' 'against the plan of arranging the names according to personal relative merit' (Ms. Top Oxon b 21, fols.

6-7). '7 (R. J. Wilberforce), Considerations Respecting the Most Effectual Means of Encouraging Mathematics (1830), pp. 9 - 1 1 ; authorship attributed by Baden Powell, copy in Bodleian Library, Baden Powell 31 (32).

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since the two branches of knowledge had to go hand in hand. He was thus abandoning the cornerstone of Baden Powell's strategy for the mathematical examiners. The separation of the boards and of the dates of the examination was the institutional instrument essential to full independence from the more conservative board of classical examiners. 18 Wilberforce was ready to take advantage from Saunders's retraction, and approved of the latter's 'judicious and well timed' proposals. The mathematical examiners felt the political and psychological blow of Saunders's defection. A memorandum signed by the mathematical examiners and addressed to the Vice-Chancellor on n November 1830 contained a considerably reduced list of requests. The plea for a longer interval between the mathematical and classical examinations was not mentioned. The only request the mathematical examiners put forward was the listing in order of merit of the students examined for the mathematical honours. On 23 November 1830 the proposals put forward by the committee appointed in 1829 were finally approved, though deeply modified by Convocation. ^ The proposals put forward by the mathematical examiners were flatly rejected. In one respect, the November 1830 statutes represented a 'retrograde move', as Baden Powell put it. Even though students examined for the B.A. degree were offered mathematics instead of logic, the statutes also prescribed a minimum requirement of four books of Euclid to satisfy the examiners. This clause had the obvious effect of restricting the 'scientific' side of the curriculum to the mechanical repetition of a few geometrical definitions and theorems. Wilberforce's view on the superiority of Euclid over the modern mathematics was thus fully endorsed by Convocation.20 On 1 December 1831, a year after the passing of the above statutes, the mathematical examiners were again on the move. This time, Saunders agreed to rejoin his colleagues in petitioning the Hebdomadal Board. The examiners requested that the names of the fifth class, the pass men, should be printed. This measure was designed to confer higher dignity upon the newly introduced fourth class. They also asked that each class be subdivided according to the order of merit and that logic should not be compulsory for students seeking honours. With the single exception of the insistence on the order of merit for the mathematical honour list, it was clear that the requests by the mathe18

A. P. Saunders, Observations on the Different Opinions Held as to the Changes Proposed in the Examination Statutes (1830), pp. 6, 9, copy in Bodleian Library, Baden Powell 31 (28). f 9 (R. Wilberforce), Considerations, p. 8; Baden Powell,' Copy of the Memorial sent to the ViceChancellor, 11 Nov., 1830', in Bodleian Library, Baden Powell 31 (31). For the official memorial, see Bodleian Library, Vice-Chancellor Papers, Ms. Top. Oxon b 23, fols. 298-9. For the drafts of the various Examination Statutes circulated in printed form and discussed in Convocation, see Bodleian Library, Oxford University Archives, Register of Convocation 1829-1837, fols. 69 et. seq., 84 et seq., 140 et seq. 20 Baden Powell, The Present State and Future Prospects, p. 39.

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matical examiners were only minor adjustments of the statutes passed in November 1830.21 As was expected, on 30 January 1832 the Council of the Heads of Houses resolved that 'the examination statute having been too recently enacted, it is not expedient to propose to Convocation any alteration in its details'. The obvious need to face the Board with proposals unanimously supported by the examiners, forced Baden Powell to formulate very moderate and almost insignificant aims. On the other hand, the timidity of the requests, limited to matters of detail as the Hebdomadal Board pointed out, was sufficient to exclude the possibility of a debate in Convocation. The confidence of the previous years was shattered, and Baden Powell became convinced that little was to be achieved by working from within. He wrote to the Vice-Chancellor: 'Being by experience now perfectly satisfied that no exertion on the part of the examiners can produce any effectual diminution of those evils . . . I can no longer continue to discharge the office of examiner, and beg to take this mode of tendering my resignation. ' 22 The time of internal reform was over. Baden Powell realized that only pressure from cultivated public opinion could restore the balance between reformers and conservatives at Oxford. Until 1832 he followed Copleston's advice on the subject of the inaugural lecture he delivered every year at the beginning of his course. In 1832 he decided to publish his lecture for the Easter term. The Oxford meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1832) represented the ideal occasion for giving the maximum of publicity to his protest.2* The debate on the decline of science in Britain and Professor Moll's remarks on the deficiency of academic science in England provided the friends of science at Oxford with a further stimulus to the full expression of their frustration. Professor Moll alleged that the Oxford professors of mathematics and astronomy 'seldom or never lecture', and 'often do not reside at all at the University'. Baden Powell replied that the guilty party was not the professoriate but the system of university education. It was a difficult task to collect a class, he added, since the university did not compel attendance, and many colleagues positively discouraged students from hearing public lectures on scientific subjects.24 21

Reasons for the Suggestion of certain Alterations in the Examination Statutes, by the Public Examiners (1832), see copy in Bodleian Library, Baden Powell 32 (2), where Baden Powell states that he received assistance from A. P. Saunders drafting the pamphlet. 22 Vice-Chancellor Papers, fols. 5 5 7 - 8 ; for a draft of Baden Powell's letter, see Bodleian Library, Baden Powell 32 (4). 2 3 O n the preparation o f the B.A.A.S. Oxford meeting see J. B. Morrell and A. Thackray, Gentlemen of Science (1981); Baden Powell was the least active of the local secretaries, though he wholeheartedly supported the Association from its inception: it is however clear that he regarded the reform o f the statutes a matter requiring immediate and exclusive attention. *• Baden Powell, The Present State and Future Prospect*, pp. 2 9 - 3 0 . O n the debate on science

n6

Science and religion

The 1832 pamphlet on the state of mathematical studies at Oxford prompts a general consideration of the development of Baden Powell's position during the three years between 1829 and 1832. The 1832 pamphlet was an outspoken, well-argued and documented denunciation of the insensitivity of the academic authorities towards mathematical and physical disciplines in particular. Baden Powell defended the liberality of mathematical and physical studies. He maintained that the cultivation of scientific disciplines had a beneficial influence upon the development of the student's mental faculties. As far as the mathematical subjects were concerned he acknowledged the superiority of tutorial teaching over the professorial. However, he also emphasized 'the absolute necessity for an attendance on public experimental lectures' for the cultivation of the natural sciences. For the first time Baden Powell advocated a ' judicious and systematic combination of the tutorial and the professorial systems of instruction'.25 The pamphlet contained proposals and themes typical of the Noetic approach to the role of the Anglican universities in times of social and political crisis, albeit interpreted by Baden Powell with considerable originality and occasional crudity. He repeated Whately's complaint about the lack of adequate elementary education of students entering the universities. He also deployed the arguments put forward by Whately to defend academic logic or political economy and pleaded the case for physical and mathematical studies. Baden Powell sought to impress his colleagues by explicitly linking the educational debate as it related to science to the political convulsions of the day:' Scientific knowledge is rapidly spreading among all classes EXCEPT THE HIGHER, and the consequence must be, that that Class will no longer remain THE HIGHER. If its members continue to retain their superiority, they must preserve a real preeminence in knowledge, and must make advances at least in proportion to the Classes which have hitherto been below them'. 26

25 26

in the early 1830s see G. A. Foote, 'The Place of Science in the British Reform Movement', Isis, 42 (1951), 192-208; N. Reingold, 'Babbage and Moll on the Decline of Science in Great Britain', B.J.H.S., 4 (1968), 58-64; S. F. Cannon, Science in Culture (1978), ch. vi. Baden Powell, The Present State and Future Prospects, pp. 18-20. The Present State, pp. 2 4 - 5 , 3 8 - 9 . Morrell and Thackray have argued that Baden Powell's lecture was ill-judged: the occasional intemperance of the language employed, and the vehement critique of academic authorities was bound to doom to failure his reforming intents. It is noted that the lecture represented the last, desperate move when all internal manoeuvring had already failed. It should also be pointed out that even the more moderate William Buckland and Charles Daubeny, who carefully avoided taking side in the dispute between the mathematical examiners and the University, after 1832 decided to appeal to cultivated public opinion. See for instance C. Daubeny, An Inaugural Lecture (1834), an 182-4, 230 n. 2, 231, 232-3, 235, 238, 241, 246

Dalton, John, 253 Darwin, Charles, 215, 221, 224, 231 n. 5, 241, 250, 251, 255, 274 n. 4, 278, 283, 284, 285, 290 Daubeny, Charles, n , 15, 27 Daubeny, Charles Giles Bridle, 4, 39 n. 5, 59 n. 23, 116 n. 26, 136 Da vies, John, 21, 26, 27 Davison, John, 21, 22-5, 32, 34, 74, 75, 87, 129, 10 n. 10, 131, 132 n. 14 Davy, Sir Humphry, 236 de Luc, Jean-Andre, 53 de Morgan, Augustus, 5, 16 n. 22, 118-19, 198, 201, 275, 290 de Quincey, Thomas, 93 n. 14 Deshayes, Paul, 229 Desmoulins, Antoine, 130 n. 2, 246 Dickens, Charles, 274 n. 4 Dissenters, 24, 31, 35, 36, 61, 62, 72, 75, 89, 91, 92, 101, 113, 122, 193, 200, 223; admission of to English Universities, 98, 102-3, 105, 120-3, 140, 143 Dogmatic theology, critique of, 71, 98-101, 120, 146; see also Hampden, Renn Dickson; Noetics; Powell, Baden; Whately, Richard Dolomieu, Deodat de, 5 D'Omalius D'Halloy, Jean-Baptiste-Julien, 232, 236, 244 Duncan, John Shute, 21 Duncan, John Bury, 21 Ehrenberg, Christian Gottfried, 253, 256 Eliot, George, 195, 196 n. 3, 204, 204 n. 19, 205, 210, 215, 265 n. 33, 266 El win, Whitwell, 216 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 200, 204, 218, 220 Essays and Reviews, 76, 88 n. 8, 148-9, 198, 215-17, 221 n. 24, 283 Evangelicals, 31, 33, 220, 223 evidence of Christianity, 23, 25, 93, 145, 190, 216, 217-18; historical, 145; miracles, 23, 26, 30, 68, 148, 186, 193, 195, 212, 213, 215; philosophical, 145, 146, 194; prophecy, 23-4, 25, 26, 30, 68; scientific, 146 Ewald, Georg Heinnish von, 213 Ferussac, Andre-Etienne d'Audebard de, 128, 130 n. 12, 230 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 207, 208, 210-11, 213, 214 Fichte, Immanuel Hermann von, 200 Fitzgerald, Bishop William, 216 Fleming, John, 57, 58, 124, 128, 234 Forbes, Edward, 204 n. 19, 273, 276 Foster, Thomas, 57 French Revolution, 22, 23, 57, 93 n. 14

Index French natural science, 229-232, 250; diffusion of in England, 232-42, 250-1 Frend, William, 16 n. 22 Froude, Richard Hurrell,86,o.6,io3,106,136 Gaisford, Thomas, 133 Gall, Franz Joseph, 55, 57—8 Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Etienne, 182-5, 229, 230-3, 235-6, 238-40, 240 n. 29, 242, 246, 248, 250, 260, 264, 272, 276, 280, 282, 284, 285 Geological Society, 178, 251 geology, 50-2, 108, 161, 164-8; astronomy compared with, 165-6; Christian apologetics and, 133 n. 19, 53; cosmology and, 259; epistemology of, 44, 151, 164-8; Genesis and, 50, 52, 53, 124, 127-9, 1323, 135, 138, 139, 227, 270; popularity of, 50; at Oxford, 39 n. 5, 53; species and, 232, 242-9, 278-80; see also Powell, Baden; Whewell, William Gerando, Joseph-Marie de, 155, 156 n. 10 German theology, 12, 26, 28-9, 30 n. 18, 62, 88 n. 8, 124, 146, 198, 200, 206, 207 n. 24, 208, 212, 213-14; equated to Unitarianism, 28—30 Gibbon, Edward, 85 Grant, Robert Edmund, 232, 233, 234, 235, 240 n. 27, 259 n. 20 Green, Joseph Henry, 233 Greg, William Rathbone, 201, 202, 208, 216 Gregory, James, 45 Grenville, William Wyndham, Baron, 85 Grinfield, Edward, 75, 77, 122 n. 39 Grove, Sir William Robert, 215 Hackney Phalanx, 4, 9-20, 22, 23, 24, 35, 38, 40, 47-8, 61, 62, 73-9, 84, 90-1, 95, 98 n. 8, 107, 108, 124, 126—7, J32> J45> 237, 287; natural theology, critique of, 68; and Noetic school, 22, 89, 132; prophecy, interest in, 23-4; and science, 47-8, 56, 126; see also Noetic school; Powell, Baden Halley, Edmond, 39 Hamilton, Sir William, 117, 119, 202, 206, 207, 208, 209 Hamilton, William John, 281 Hampden, Renn Dickson, 21, 33, 67 n. 9, 74, 76, 86, 92, 98, 99, 100-1, 103-6, 108, 121, 135, 198, 236; and Dugald Stewart, 67 n. 9 Hare, Augustus William, 29 Hare, Julius Charles, 29, 30 n. 18, 198, 200, 270 Hartley, David, 45, 56 Haiiy, Rene-Juste, 43 Hawkins, Edward, 86, 87, 96, 100, 102, 105,

106, 121-2, 144, 144 n. 1, 146 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 208

Hennell, Charles, 204, 207, 265 n. 33 Hennell, Sara, 204 Henry, William Charles, 235 Herschel, Sir John Frederick William, 39,

41, 147, 152, 152 n. 3, 153, 154, 154 n. 7, 158 nn. 15-16, 160—2, 162 n. 24, 166, 166 n. 32, 168-^9, 170, 174, 245-6, 248, 251, 254 n. 7, 269, 276 Hetherington, Henry, 195, 256 High Church, 9, 16, 19, 20, 22-7, 30-1, 33, 42, 47-8, 49, 62, 69, 73, 76, 89, 101-2, 107, 126, 220, 287; journals inspired by, 10, 16-18, 21, 27, 41, 47-8, 61; science, attitudes towards, 47-8, 49, 125-6, 131-2; see also British Critic, Hackney Phalanx Hinds, Samuel, 86, 92, 99, 100, 144 n. 1 Hobart, John Henry, 15 n. 19, 16, 19 n. 29, 88 n. 7 Holbach, Baron Paul-Henri Dietrich d\ 64 Holyoake, George Jacob, 217, 220, 257 Homerton College, 12 Hone, William, 75 Hooker, Joseph Dalton, 273, 283, 284 Horsley, Bishop Samuel, 19, 23, 47 Horner, Leonard, 213 Hume, David, 73, 160, 170, 190 Humboldt, Alexander von, 129 n. 9, 276 Hunt, John, 87 Hutchinsonianism, 18, 23, 47, 76, 237 Huxley, Thomas Henry, 280, 284 Ironmonger, Frederick, 17 Irons, William Josiah, 179-80, 181, 187, 188, 191-2, 209 Irving, Edward, 190 Jacobinism, 12-13, J 8 ; science and, 48 Jenyns, Leonard, 235 Jevons, William Stanley, 275 Jews, 25, 26, 31, 32, 87, 130, 212, 218, 260 Jones, Richard, 152, 155, 169 Jones, William, 18, 23, 47, 71, 179, 209 Jowett, Benjamin, 199, 220 Kant, Immanuel, 155, 156 n. 10, 187 n. 19, 200, 206—8

Keble, John, 96, 97, 102-4, I2I > J 3° Kett, Henry, 132 n. 14 King, William, 62, 203, 207, 209 Kirby, William, 23, 24, 47, 51, 237, 240, 246, 251 Kitto, John, 258, 271 Knox, Robert, 233, 272 n. 1, 280 Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste de, 185, 229, 230-9, 241, 242-4, 246, 247, 249, 251, 256, 257, 258, 264, 273, 276, 278, 282, 285 Laplace, Pierre Simon de, 43,237, 251,255, 259 Latreille, Pierre-Andre, 230 n. 2

342

Index

Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent, 43 Lawrence, William, 48, 50, 51, 53, 55-8, 138, 233 Lewes, George Henry, 7, 176, 204 n. 19, 205, 207, 215, 265, 276, 278 Linnaeus, Carolus, 238 Lloyd, Charles, 15 Lloyd, Richard, 4, 30, 33, 63 Locke, John, 26-7, 31, 34, 43, 63, 65, 73, 76

Lovelace, Lady Ada, 266-7 Lubbock, Johon, 162-3, 286 Lyall, William Rowe, 4, 17, 42, 43 Lyell, Charles, 7, i n , 161, 165-7, 175, 201, 234, 2 37, 242-^9, 250, 251, 255, 257, 258, 260, 269, 271, 276, 277, 278, 284 MacCulloch, John, 233 MacKay, Robert William, 204, 207 MacLeay, William Sharp, 234 Malthus, Thomas Robert, 69 mathematics: role of, in classical education, 113, 188; reform of curriculum at Oxford, 107-119 Mansel, Henry Longueville, 202, 206, 207, 208, 212-13, 220 Mantell, Gideon, 252, 256 Marsh, Herbert, 15 n. 20, 16, 29 Martineau, Harriet, 176, 204, 207 Martineau, James, 147, 200, 201, 264 materialism: and science, 50-3, 55-9, 227, 230, 236, 249, 252, 257-8; and species, 249, 256-7, 272-3 Maurice, Frederick Denison, 220 Mayo, Herbert, 83, 184 Mechanics' Institutes, 97, 125, 127, 258 Methodists, 31, 91 Middleton, Thomas Fanshaw, 17 Mill, James, 43 Mill, John Stuart, 20, 42, 43, 164, 168-73, 176^7, 204-5, 207, 209, 215, 221, 275, 286, 288, 290 millenarianism, 22, 23, 24, 132, 132 n. 16 Miller, Hugh, 271, 272, 273, 283 miracles, 23, 28-9, 148, 190, 190 n. 24, 1923, 195-7, 206 n. 22, 212-18; see also Powell, Baden; Whately, Richard Moll, Gerard, 115-16 Morell, John Daniel, 194, 200, 208 Morgan, Sir Thomas Charles, 48, 50, 57 Mosaic geologists, 52, 55, 136, 181, 254 Mozley, Thomas, 22 Murchison, Roderick Impey, 107, 129 n. 9,

natural theology, 52, 64, 147, 178-93, 202-3, 206, 209, 210; species, 234, 264, 265, 272-4, 289; see also Noetic school; Powell, Baden; Whately, Richard Neander, Johann August Wilhelm, 213 nebular hypothesis, 175, 252, 258-9, 262, 263

Newman, Francis, 7, 15 n. 21, 25 n. 10, 146, 194, 200, 201, 202, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 212-13, 214, 215, 218, 219—20, 223,

262, 263-4, 265-6, 268, 269-70, 273-6, 278, 283, 285, 289-91 Newman, John Henry, 15, 18, 84, 89, 92, 95, 96-7, 103-4, 106, 121-2, 131, 133, 136, 178, 190 n. 24, 213, 287, 290 Newton, Sir Isaac, 27, 34, 45, 161 Nichol, John Pringle, 252 Niebuhr, Barthold Georg, 29 n. 18 Noetic school, 22, 24, 27, 33, 35, 44, 63, 738, 83-95, 98, 127, 135, 162, 173, 179, 180, 188, 194, 198, 199, 207, 237, 286-7, 290; and admission of Dissenters to Oxford, 97, 102-3, 105, 120-3; Bishop Joseph Butler, 25, 27, 76-7; on Church authority, 88, 144, 145, 197; and Church politics, 91-2, 97, 102, 103, 144; differences within, 106-8, 121-2, 127, 130-1, 134-5, 138-40, 143-4, H8; dogmatic theology, critique of, 88, 98-101, 120, 135, 197, 199; and evidence of Christianity, 24-5, 145, 147-8, 194, 212; and Hackney Phalanx, 22, 24, 28, 33, 34, 61, 74, 75, 76, 86-7, 89, 91; and liberal education, 109110; and inductive theology, 71, 99-101, 104, 135, 168; and natural theology, 76, 145, 147, 179, 188; on political economy, 152, 162, 169, 290; and poor laws, 24; on reasonableness of Christianity, 73-4; on sabbath, 32-4; and scholastic theology, 76; and Dugald Stewart, 43-4, 63, 67 n. 9, 76, 289; and Unitarians, 27, 62-3, 98 Nolan, Frederick, 131-2, 133, 238-9 Norris, Henry Handley, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18 n. 26, 22, 76, 98

mysticism, in religion, 146, 194, 204, 217

Oken, Lorenz, 280 Oriel College, Oxford, 20, 24, 33, 34, 73, 74-5, 105; see also Noetic school Owen, Richard, 204 n. 19, 213, 251 n. 2, 259 n. 20, 265-8, 278-82 Oxford University: attacks upon, 38-9, 47, 48, 117-18, 119; reform of statutes, 36, 39 n. 5; science teaching at, 38-9, 79; see also Noetic school, Powell, Baden

Napier, Macvey, 100 National Society for the Education of the Poor, 14

Paine, Thomas, 64 Paley, William, 179, 195, 217 Palmer, Elihu, 53

213

Index Palmer, William, ioo Parker, John, 205 Parker, Theodore, 195, 200, 204, 212, 218, 220 Pattison, Mark, 276 Peacock, George, 39 Peel, Sir Robert, 96, 103, 106, 107 Penn, Granville, 52, 54 Phillips, John, 260 Phillips, William, 44, 52, 54, 55, 233 physiology, 50-1, 53, 55-7, 138, 252, 264 Piazzi Smyth, Charles, 7 Pictet, Francois-Jules, 280 Pitt, Sir William, 93 n. 14 Poole, Reginald Stuart, 205 Poor Laws, 24, 75 Pope, Charlotte, 6, 144, 147, 200 Pope, William Lowe, 78 popular education, 12, 13, 14, 38, 93; and class division, 13, 93-4 Powell, Baden: on admission of Dissenters to Oxford, 5, 98, 120-3, 143; and Thomas Arnold, 104, 120, 123, 139, 196; biography of, 4-8, 9-11, 144, 200, 204-5, 221, 275; and British Critic, 4, 10, 21, 36, 61-2, 137; and Broad Church, 197-8; and William Benjamin Carpenter, 264, 273-6, 278, 281, 285, 289-90; and Robert Chambers, 273-4, 275-6, 278, 285, 290; and Christian Remembrancer, 4-5, 10, 21, 22, 61, 107, 124, 137; on Christian tolerance, 197, 198, 199, 200, 204, 288; on church authority, 31-2, 34, 65, 144, 197, 288; and Auguste Comte, 174-6, 252, 288; and Edward Copleston, 32-3, 34, 68-9, 71, 79, 108-9, I J 5 , J 88, 202-3, 2 86; on cosmology, 175, 252, 254-5, 258-9, 260; and Charles Darwin, 278, 283-4; and Dissenters, 61, 64, 72, 172, 193; dogmatic theology, his critique of, 65, 71, 85, 104, 122, 135, 137, 197, 199; on evidence of Christianity, 26, 30, 68, 147, 148, 191-5, 197, 209, 212, 215, 216, 21920, 221, 223, 228, 288; and order of nature, 148, 184, 210, 222, 259, 273; and psychology, 197, 214-15, 222, 228; Essays and Reviews, 215-221; and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 248; and German theology, 26, 28-30, 124, 195-6, 200, 21014; and Hackney Phalanx, 4, 9, 10, 22, 23, 34. 35, 38, 47-8, 68, 71-9, 107-8, 124, 127, 139, 176, 221, 286—7; and Renn Dickson Hampden, 21-2, 33; and John Frederick William Herschel, 41, 147, 153, 158 nn. 15-16, 166, 170, 248, 270; and Charles Lyell, 165-7, 24^> 249, 250; and John Stuart Mill, 42, 164, 168-73, 2 2 1 , 286, 288; on miracles, 29, 68, 148, 186,

343

189, 190—3, 195-7, 2 °6 212-18; on natural theology, 52, 64, 68, 71, 145, 147-9, 1712, 177, 178-93, 202-3, 206, 209-11, 215, 219, 228, 280; and Francis Newman, 264, 270, 273-6, 278, 285, 289, 290; and John Henry Newman, 97; and Noetic school, 4-5, 3i, 33, 46, 48, 69, 71, 72, 73-9, 104, 106, 108, 116-17, 127, 129, 134-5, J 37, 139-40, 143, 144, 148, 162, 168, 176, 188, 197, 199, 221, 286—7; and Oriel College, 20, 78 Powell, Baden, on philosophy, 5, 63-4; and philosophy of science, 36, 42, 65-8, 150, 277-8; and analogy, 158, 159, 165; and a priori, 158, 159, 183; and axioms, 151, 158; and cause, 160-4, 166-7, I 7°~ I , 2 0 2 i and final cause, 182-4, 186, 202; and moral cause, 161, 168, 186, 228; and definitions, 65, 147, 151, 170; and hypothesis, 42, 45-6, 175, 155; and induction, 147, 151-2, 153-4, 158-60, 162, 164, 168, I I 7 » *73, 210-11; and laws of motion, 154, 158; and necessity and contingency, 151, 164, 165, 169-70, 275; and theology, 67, 68, 70, 79, 138-9, 150, 222; and theories, 42, 45-6, 66, 67, 159, 175; and technical terminology, 42; and uniformity of nature, 154, 158, 159, 164, 166, 171, 172; and polygenism, 130, 134, 148; and prophecies, 24-5, 68, 126, 189, 190, 193; and reason and scriptures, 64-5, 191, 193; on reasonableness of Christianity, 26, 30, 65, 68, 193; and Roman Catholics, 61, 64, 71, 72, 193; and sabbath, 30-4, 107-8, 135 Powell, Baden, on science: and aesthetic value of, 40, 137; and astronomy, 36, 37, 44, 167; authority of, 36, 38, 43, 48, 79, 116, 125, 126, 133, 178; and class struggle, 116, 118, 133-4, I7I~2> J 7 8 ; epistemological foundation of geology, 147, 150, 161-2, 164-8, 170, 186, 248; French physics, 41; geology, 44, 45, 51, 5 2 , 54, 59, 60, 127-9, 132, 134, 138, 150, 161-2, 164-8, 175, 227, 259, 287; geology and Genesis, 60, 127-9, *34, J 38-9, 150, 227, 254, 260; and intellectual advance, 37, 43, 48, 126-7, 2 2 7, 289; and liberal education, 36-7, 38, 39, 41, 47, 107, n o , 116, 118, 150; and mathematics, 5, 37, 40-2, 65, 107-10, 118, 151; and Mosaic deluge, 52-3, 54-5, 60, 127, 138, 167; physics, 4, 36, 37, 39, 41, 153, 162-3, 174; physiology, 51, 57-9, 227; and psychological materialism, 57-9, 134 n. 22, 227; reform of curriculum at Oxford, 36, 38-9, 47, 58, 64, 105, 106-23, I 2 5 , 131, 143, 150; and religion, 59, 96, 127, 129, 143, 191, 227, 248, 270, 287

344

Index

Powell, Baden, and scholastic theology, 71; and scriptures, 59, 70, 89, 129, 167, 191; inspiration of scriptures, 26, 54-5, 60, 104, 129, 138, 189, interpretation of scriptures, 64, 67, 143, 147, 254, 260; and Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 118; on species, 148-9, 185, 224, 248-9, 251, 273, 278-83, 287, 290; species and geology, 278-80; species and philosophy of creation, 276, 278, 283; species and philosophy of science, 149, 185, 274, 282; and Dugald Stewart, 42-5, 47, 65, 147, 151-2, 154-5, 159, 162, 164, 168-9, I7I> I73» 22I > 286, 288; and Tractarian movement, 6, 147, 168, 178, 195, 197, 288; and transcendentalism, 146, 197, 200, 214; and Unitarians, 27, 28, 37, 60, 64-4, 67, 70, 71, 138, 265; on Vestiges, 204, 251, 258, 262, 265, 270-1, 274-5, 2 7^, 277, 282; and Richard Whately, 33-4, 65, 68, 71, 78, 89, 95, 127, 128, 129, 130-1, 134-5, 140, 144, H7, 148, 149, 150, 155, 164, 168, 169, 171, i73> J 94, 195, 203, 216-22, 224, 274-5, 286, 287, 288; and William Whewell, 39, 41, 153-6, 158-9, 160-1, 164-7, 169-71, 182-5, 198, 248-9, 250, 259; and Joseph Blanco White, 147 Powell, Baden, senior, 10, 23, 78 Powell, Caroline, 10, 11 Powell, Henrietta Catherine, 11 Powell, Susanna, 11 Prevost, Constant, 129 n. 9, 232 Prichard, James Cowles, 49-50, 52, 130, 134, 138, 255 Priestley, Joseph, 12, 56 Pring, Daniel, 55, 56 n. 17 prophecy, 22, 23, 24, 126, 190, 190 n. 23, J 93 psychology, and materialism, 55-7 Pusey, Edward Bouverie, 11, 15, 29, 68 n. 11, 86, 92, 104, 133, 136, 178 Quain, Jones, 233 Quetelet, Lambert Adolphe Jacques, 255 reasonableness of Christianity, 23, 25-7, 30, 35, 62, 63, 73-4 Reform Bill, 97, 106, 107, 132 Rennell, Thomas, 16, 51 55-8, 94 Ricardo, David, 43 Rivaz, Eliza, 5, 6 Robinson, David, 94 n. 16 Robison, John, 48, 57 Roman Catholics, 61, 72, 76, 89, 91, 101, 193, 201 Roget, Peter Mark, 239, 240, 255 Rose, Hugh James, 16, 28-30, 30 n. 18, 40,

48, 51-2, 62, 71, 72, 90, 92, 98 n. 8, 1245, 127, 145 n. 2, 155, 181, 240 Royal Society, 163, 178 Russell, Lord John, 7 sabbath, 30-4, 98, 108, 135 Saunders, Augustus Page, i n n. 9, 113-14 scriptures, 87, 187; and inspiration of, 2 3 ^ , 32, 50, 54, 63, 131, 138-9; and science, 49-50, 52-5, 124-40, 138-9, 181, 270 Scrope, George Julius Poulett, 124 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 97, 118, 127, 134 Sedgwick, Adam, 53, 124, 129 n. 9, 132-3, 198, 240, 253, 257, 258, 262, 265, 267, 268, 269, 271, 272, 282, 283 Senior, Nassau William, 21, 43, 59 n. 23, 83, 85, 86-7, 92, 127, 130, 134 n. 22, 152 n. 3, 169 Serres, Antoine-Etienne-Reynaud-Augustin, 235, 237, 239, 242 Serres, Marcel de, 128, 239 n. 25 Sewell, William, 121, 123, 133, 136 n. 25, 136, 179, 181 Shuttleworth, Philip Nicholas, 21, 130 n. 10 Sikes, Mary, 1 Sikes, Thomas, 11, 18 n. 26 Smith, Adam, 85 Smith, John Pye, 12, 62, 252, 256, 262 Smith, William Henry, 262-3 Smyth, Henriette Grace, 7, 200 Smyth, William Henry, 7, 9, 200 socialism, 146 Sonnini de Manoncourt, Charles-NicholasSigisbert, 229, 230 n. 2 Southwell, Charles, 257 species, 148-9, 217 n. 15, 228, 229, 285; see also Powell, Baden Spencer, Herbert, 276, 278 Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 11, 27 Spurzheim, Johann Christoph, 55, 57, 58 Stael-Holstein, Anne Louise Germaine de, 155, 156 n. 10 Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 199, 220, 220 n. 23 Sterling, John, 194, 196, 220 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 215 Stewart, Dugald, 30, 31, 31 n. 21, 42-5, 467, 56 n. 18, 62-3, 65, 67 n. 9, 68 n. 11, 71 n. 17, 76, 99, 147, 151-2, 154, 154 n. 7, !55, i5&-7» J57 n- I2> i5 8 -9, l 6 2 , 168-9, I I X 7 , 73~4> lll-> 22l-> 236, 286, 288, 289 Strauss, David Friedrich, 195, 196, 196 n. 3, 208, 213 Swainson, William, 236 Temple, Frederick, 220 Test and Corporation Acts, 91, 132

Index Thirlwall, Connop, 29 Tholuck, Friedrich August, 29 n. 17 Thomson, Thomas, 48 Thompson, Robert Anchor, 206, 207 n. 24, 277 Tiedemann, Friedrich, 234 n. 14, 235, 237, 239, 242, 255 Tractarian movement, 7, 20, 22, 24, 61, 73, 98, 102, 107 n. 2, 140, 144, 146—7, 178, 179, 180, 191, i94-5> J 97, 220, 275, 2 8 9 ; and science, 136—7 transcendentalism, theological, 146-7, 194, 202, 208, 214; philosophical, 155 Treviranus, Gottfried Reinhold, 256 Tulloch, John, 206, 207 n. 24, 213, 277-8 Turton, Thomas, 180, 181 Unitarian New College, Hackney, 12 Unitarians, 12, 13 nn. 13-14, 14, 18, 24, 27, 28-9, 34-5, 53, 56-7, 61-2, 91, 97, 101, 102-4, 127, 138, 145, 147, 201, 264, 265 Van Mildert, William, 14-17, 21, 22, 24, 28, 34, 35, 62, 68, 71, 74, 78, 89, 90 n. 9, 93, 100, 179, 209 Virey, Julien-Joseph, 130 n. 12, 229, 236, 237-8, 238 n. 23, 239, 240 n. 27, 241-2, 246 Volney, Constantin Francois Chasseboeuf de, 64 Wade, John, 38, 48 Walker, Robert, 111 n. 9, 117 Wallace, Alfred Russell, 276, 284 Wallis, John, 39 Ward, John William, Lord Dudley, 75 n. 6, 85 n. 1 Ward, William Reginald, 106, 112 Waterland, Daniel, 21, 22, 28, 62 Watson, John James, 10, 11 Watson, Joshua, 10, 11, 15, 16, 23, 76, 90 n. 9 Webster A. B., 10 Weekes, William Henry, 256, 263 Whately, Elizabeth, 78, 144, 168 Whately, Richard, 6, 8, 16 n. 21, 21, 34, 71, 75, 78, 97, 98, 120, 129, 133, 134-5, 144, 150, 164, 168, 173, 175, 177, 188 n. 21, 189, 194, 199, 203, 207, 209, 215, 221, 286, 287, 291; and admission of Dissenters to Oxford, 98, 102, 105, 122, 140; and American Episcopal Church, 87; and Bishop Joseph Butler, 77; on Church authority, 78, 88, 90, 95; and Church politics, 87, 92, 97, 102, 106; and disestablishment, 87-8, 91; and Letters on the Churchy 87-8, 91, 99, 107; and revival

345

of Convocation, 90; dogmatic theology, critique of, 78, 88, 89, 101, 104; and evidence of Christianity, 24, 93, 145-6, 148, 149, 219, 220, 222, 224; and German theology, 29; and Edward Hawkins, 68, 71-2, 76, 88-9, 93, 95, 98, 100; and Renn Dickson Hampden, 100; and liberal education, 94, 109, 112, 116; on logic, 789, 109, 151-2, 162, 168-9, 264; on miracles, 195, 216, 217, 218; and natural theology, 68, 203; and Noetic school, 24, 74, 75, 83^95, 96 Whately, Richard, on philosophy of science, 46, 65, 139, 147, 164; and induction, 151, 171, 173; and necessity and contingency, 66 n. 6, 169, 170 Whately, Richard, and political economy, 85, 94, 116, 127, 162; on popular education, 93-4, 157; and Baden Powell, 216—22, 274-5, 287, 288; on reasonableness of Christianity, 35, 63; on reform of curriculum at Oxford, 85, 94, 105, 122; and sabbath, 33-4, 98, 130 Whately, Richard, on science and religion, 28, 101, 137, 140; possibilities of conflict between, 127-8, 130-1, 134, 136 Whately, Richard, and scriptures, authority °f, 63, 73; and Dugald Stewart, 42-3, 46, 63, 65-6, 157, 171, 172, 173; and Tractarian movement, 145; Unitarians, 62, 98; and Vestiges, 274-5; and Joseph Blanco White, 99—100, 104, 147 Whately, Thomas, 93 n. 15 Whewell, William, 7, 68 n. 11, 162, 240, 252, 254, 257, 258, 259, 275, 277, 282-3; and Broad Church, 198-9; and Georges Cuvier, 182, 184; and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 182, 183, 184, 247; on geology, 161, 164, 165-6, 170, 244-5; on German philosophy, 155, and theology, 30 n. 18; and John Frederick William Herschel, 168; and Richard Jones, 152, 155, 169; and Immanuel Kant, 155; and Charles Lyell, 165, 166-7, 243-5, 247, 248-50, 259; and John Stuart Mill, 164, 168, 169, 173; on natural theology, 181, 183, 184, and anatomy, 183, 184, and final causes, 182, 183, and physical causes, 183; and Richard Owen, 266, 267, 268 Whewell, William, on philosophy of science, 147, 152-3, 154, 174; and a priori, 155, J 57, J 58, 159; and axioms, 156-8; and cause, 156, 157, 160, 170, 171, 250; and fundamental ideas, 170, 187; and induction, 152; and logic of induction, 153, 156; and laws of motion, 153, 156, 157; and necessity and contingency, 155, 156, 157, 164, 165, 170

Index

346

Whewell, William, and political economy, 152, 152 n. 3, 156, 169; and reform of curriculum at Cambridge, 156; Hugh James Rose, 30 n. 18, 40, 155; on science, 39, 41; on species, 185, 244-7, 259, 273, and Lamarckism, 244-5, 247> a n d Vestiges, 267; and Mme de Stael, 155, 156 n. 10; and Dugald Stewart, 152, 156, 157, 173; and Richard Whately, 152, 156, 157, l(

*),

173

White, Charles, 256 White, Joseph Blanco, 21, 74, 78, 83-4, 85,

91, 92 n. 13, 99, 100, 104, 146, 147, 168, 194, 195, 196, 196 n. 3, 218, 264, 291 Wilberforce, Robert, 113, 114 Wilberforce, Bishop Samuel, 284 Wills, William Henry, 274 n. 4 Wilson, Henry Bristow, 216, 220 Wisemann, Nicholas, 246, 258 n. 17 Woodhouse, Robert, 37, 44 Wordsworth, Christopher, 28 n. 28, 40 Yule, John David, 3, 9, 10